THE   LIFE   OF 

HENRY  LABOUCHERE 


BY 
ALGAR   LABOUCHERE  THOROLD 

TT  T 

Henr  .chere 

•SIX  MASTUtS  III  DISILLUSION,"  ETC. 

:n  a  photograph  by  Messrs.   Brogi  of  Florence- 
taken  in  1905  at  Villa  Christina,  Florence 


a  >  SONS 

NBV        AND  LONDON 

C&e  Knickerbocker  press 


THE   LIFE   OF 

HENRY  LABOUCHERE 


BY 
ALGAR  LABOUCHERE  THOROLD 

AUTHOR  OF 
"  SIX  MASTERS  IN  DISILLUSION,"  ETC. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW    YORK   AND    LONDON 

Che  ftnfcherbocfter  pteae 
1913 


COPYRIGHT,  1913 

BY 
ALGAR   LABOUCHERE   THOROLD 


Ubc  ftnfcfecrbocfeer  fJrcse,  Dew 


So 

MY  COUSIN 

MARY  DOROTHEA 

(MARCHESA  DI  RUDINI) 

IN   MEMORY   OF   MANY  HAPPY   DAYS   AT 
VILLA   CRISTINA 


Oct.  is,  1913- 


PREFACE 

IT  would  be  unfair  both  to  the  reader  and  to  the  subject  of 
this  memoir  to  let  this  book  go  forth  without  a  word  of 
introduction.  The  lot  of  Henry  Labouchere,  who  was  bora 
in  the  reign  of  William  IV.  and  lived  to  see  George  V.  on  the 
throne,  was  cast  during  a  period  of  European  development 
as  important,  perhaps,  as  any  that  modern  history  records. 
For  certainly  the  most  significant,  if  not  the  most  salient, 
fact  in  the  history  of  modern  Europe  is  that  democratisation 
of  England  which,  in  spite  of  many  set-backs  and  obstacles, 
has  at  length  been,  in  principle  at  all  events,  definitely 
achieved.  To-day  we  are  all  democrats,  Tories  and  Radicals 
alike.  In  that  process,  the  full  significance  of  which  has 
still  to  unfold  itself,  Mr.  Labouchere  played  a  striking  and 
original  part.  It  was  not  always  a  successful  one,  but  it 
was  always  played  honestly,  daringly,  and,  above  all,  charac- 
teristically. Although  a  convinced,  and  in  spite  of  himself, 
if  one  may  say  so,  even  an  enthusiastic  Radical,  no  politician 
was  ever  less  of  a  party  man.  His  loyalty  was  given  to 
principles,  not  men,  and  some  of  his  bitterest  attacks  both 
in  Parliament  and  in  the  press  were  reserved  for  Radical 
Ministries  that,  according  to  his  lights,  were  untrue  to  their 
profession.  He  was  also,  what  is  not  so  common  in  politics, 
a  thoroughly  disinterested  man.  He  sought  neither  office 
nor  honour.  Circumstances  placed  him  beyond  the  need 
of  money,  and  just  as  no  personal  feelings  could  ever  blind 
him  to  political  shortcomings  in  his  leaders,  so  the  strongest 
and  most  vehemently  expressed  disapproval  of  his  opponents 


VI 


PREFACE 


frequently  went  with  a  marked  attachment  to  their  persons, 
and  the  strange  thing  is  that  he  succeeded  in  convincing 
both  sides  of  the  House  of  the  genuineness  of  this  emotionally 
disinterested  attitude. 

The  opinions  of  Englishmen  are  rarely  disinterested,  and 
it  should  never  be  forgotten  that  Henry  Labouchere  was, 
in  fact,  a  Frenchman.  French  by  birth,  he  remained,  to 
the  day  of  his  death,  French  in  his  method  of  formation  of 
opinion,  in  his  outlook  on  life,  in  the  peculiar  quality  of  his 
wit.  It  was  this  that  enabled,  or  rather  obliged,  him  to  take 
that  curiously  detached  view  of  English  ideals  which  was  at 
times  so  disconcerting  even  to  those  who  thought  that  they 
understood  him.  Ideals,  he  held,  were  only  entitled  to 
respect  when  translated  into  material  currency.  "How 
much  £  s.  d.  does  he  believe  in  what  he  says?"  he  would  ask 
concerning  some  fervid  prophet.  And  if  convinced  that  the 
requisite  materialisation  had  occurred,  he  would  accept  the 
prophet  as  one  more  strange  and  amusing  phenomenon  in  a 
strange  and  amusing  universe.  It  would  have  never  oc- 
curred to  him  that  because  the  prophet  was  sincere  he  was 
right.  That  was  a  matter  for  reason.  He  once  observed 
to  me,  in  his  whimsical  way,  of  a  colleague,  that  the  mere 
denial  of  the  existence  of  God  did  not  entitle  a  man's  opin- 
ion to  be  taken  without  scrutiny  on  matters  of  greater 
importance.  No  "mere"  Englishman  could  have  said  that. 

That  essential  f  oreignness  rendered  him  hard  of  compre- 
hension even  to  those  who  sympathised  with  his  aims.  For 
instance,  he  was  a  Radical,  as  sincere  and  convinced  a  Radical 
as  the  late  Mr.  Stead,  but  in  a  very  different  way.  His 
Radicalism  was  based  on  Reason.  It  represented  Reason 
applied  to  that  particular  department  of  human  affairs 
called  Politics,  and  so  applied,  one  may  add,  in  spite  of  the 
irrationality  of  most  of  the  men  called  Radical  politicians. 
English  Radicalism,  on  the  other  hand,  rests  mainly  on  hu- 
manitarian sentimentalism.  The  religion  du  docker  of  feudal 
England  has  been  largely  replaced  by  a  rival  cult,  the 


PREFACE  vii 

hysterical  excesses  of  which  found  in  him  a  scathing  critic. 
He  did  not  resent  the  hereditary  principle  in  government 
because  it  was  unjust,  but  because  it  was  absurd,  and  when 
he  fought  some  concrete  instance  of  injustice,  as  he  was 
constantly  doing,  the  emotional  aspect  of  the  case  made 
little,  if  any,  appeal  to  him.  He  disliked  injustice  on  rational 
and,  as  it  were,  aesthetic  grounds.  He  had  no  passionate 
love  of  virtue,  public  or  private ;  he  thought  it,  on  the  whole, 
a  sound  investment,  but  then  even  sound  investments  some- 
times go  wrong.  In  his  personal  outlook  on  things  he  was 
as  completely  non-religious  as  a  man  could  be.  He  was  not 
anti-religious.  He  fully  recognised  the  utility  of  religious 
belief  in  others,  perhaps  even  in  society  at  large,  and  he 
based  this  recognition  not  so  much  on  the  hardness  of  men's 
hearts  as  on  the  thickness  of  their  heads.  But  personally 
he,  Henry  Labouchere,  took  no  interest  whatever  in  the 
matter.  In  philosophy  he  was  a  strict  agnostic,  owning 
Hume,  for  whom  he  had  the  greatest  admiration,  and  the 
Kant  of  the  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  as  his  masters.  And 
he  was  remarkably  well  read  in  the  works  of  those 
philosophers. 

He  was  constitutionally  suspicious  of  strong  feelings  or 
enthusiasm  of  any  kind.  All  sensible  people  smoked,  he 
used  to  say,  in  order  to  protect  themselves  against  such 
disturbing  factors.  He  loathed  every  kind  of  humbug. 
He  did  not,  however,  disdain  it  as  a  weapon.  During  the 
General  Election  of  1905  the  Tories  made  a  party  cry  of 
Tariff  Reform;  he  calmly  observed  one  day,  throwing  down 
his  paper:  "Well,  of  course  I  think  we  are  right,  but  whether 
we  are  or  not,  we  Ve  got  all  the  bunkum  on  our  side." 

In  his  personal  relations  with  others  he  was  very  sociable 
and  courteous,  retaining  even  in  old  age  the  fine  manners  of 
an  earlier  generation.  He  was  immensely  kind-hearted, 
and  suffered  fools,  if  not  gladly,  at  least  with  politeness  and 
equanimity.  His  love  for  children  is  well  known.  There 
was  nothing  he  enjoyed  more  than  giving  children's  parties, 


Vlll 


PREFACE 


and  on  these  occasions  would  take  any  amount  of  personal 
trouble  to  ensure  the  pleasure  of  his  little  friends.  My 
earliest  recollection  of  him  is,  as  a  child  of  eight  or  so,  sitting 
on  his  knee  drinking  in  the  most  fascinating  and  horrible 
tales  of  the  Siege  of  Paris,  which  he  would  tell  me  by  the 
hour.  And  almost  my  last  recollection  is  of  his  interest  in 
a  Christmas  tree  prepared  for  my  own  children  on  the  very 
day  on  which  he  took  to  his  bed  for  the  last  time. 

These  traits  make  up  a  character  more  familiar  in  France 
than  elsewhere.  In  his  political  ideas  he  resembled  C16men- 
ceau  more  nearly  than  any  English  statesman,  and  in  general 
habit  of  mind  he  was  a  direct  descendant  of  Voltaire.  In 
character  he  was  more  like  Fontenelle.  He  had  Fontenelle's 
moral  scepticism,  his  personal  confidence  in  reason  qualified 
by  his  distrust  of  most  people's  reasoning  powers,  and  his 
profound  sense  of  the  dangers  of  enthusiasm.  People  called 
him  a  cynic ;  and,  if  .that  somewhat  vague  term  denotes  one 
who  attempts  to  discount  the  emotional  factor  in  judgment, 
who  endeavours  to  see  the  bare  facts  in  as  dry  and  objective 
a  light  as  possible,  a  cynic  he  was.  But  he  was  a  kind- 
hearted,  even  an  affectionate  cynic.  It  was  not  easy  to 
win  his  regard,  but,  if  you  succeeded  in  winning  it,  you  were 
sure  of  it.  His  own  feelings  he  never  expressed;  this  was 
not  because  he  had  none,  but  because  of  the  exaggerated 
pudeur  which  he  felt  on  the  subject  of  the  emotions.  There 
was  something  both  ridiculous  and  indecent  to  his  mind  in 
even  the  most  restrained  exhibition  of  affection.  Briefly, 
he  may  be  said  to  have  worn  a  fig-leaf  over  his  heart. 

A  word  or  two  as  to  the  method  and  scope  of  this  book. 
In  order  to  give  a  full  and  detailed  account  of  the  whole  of 
Labouchere's  career,  it  would  have  been  necessary  to  write 
at  least  a  dozen  volumes;  some  sort  of  selection  imposed 
itself.  I  have  endeavoured  to  concentrate  my  own  (and  I 
hope  my  readers')  attention  on  Labouchere  himself.  There 
is  a  danger  which  lurks  for  the  biographer  of  a  public  man 
lest  the  environment  of  his  hero — the  narrative  of  the  events 


PREFACE  ix 

in  which  he  played  a  part — should  hang  too  loosely  to  his 
figure.  There  is  also  the  danger  that  the  frame,  so  to  speak, 
should  not  be  given  its  due  value  in  the  portrait.  In  order 
to  appreciate  the  part  played  in  public  affairs  by  an  indi- 
vidual, it  is  necessary  to  understand  what  is  going  on.  As 
this  book  has  been  written  for  the  general  public,  I  have  felt 
it  desirable  to  retell  certain  episodes  in  modern  politics,  in 
which  Mr.  Labouchere  played  an  important  part,  in  greater 
detail  than  would  have  been  necessary  had  I  been  writing 
for  politicians.  In  such  retelling  I  claim  no  originality.  I 
have  followed  standard  authorities,  and  the  point  of  view 
of  my  narrative  has  been,  to  a  great  extent,  that  of  Mr. 
Labouchere  himself,  although,  when  I  have  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  that  point  of  view  was  mistaken,  I  have  not 
hesitated  to  say  so.  In  this  way  I  hope  that  the  reader  may 
be  enabled  to  see  the  inevitability  of  much  of  Labouchere's 
political  action,  which  at  the  time,  looked  at  piecemeal,  may 
have  appeared  gratuitously  mischievous. 

I  feel  I  ought  to  call  the  reader's  attention  to  the  fact 
that  if  Mr.  Labouchere's  many-sided  life  is  considered  as  a 
whole,  his  political  proceedings  represent  but  a  small  part 
of  his  activity.  He  had  lived  an  average  lifetime  before  he 
seriously  took  up  political  work,  and  genuine  as  his  principles 
undoubtedly  were,  still  politics  were  never  really  more  to 
him  than  a  means  of  self-expression  and,  it  must  be  said, 
amusement.  He  loved  watching  the  spectacle  of  life,  and 
he  came  to  find  in  the  game  of  politics  a  sort  of  concentrated 
version  of  life  as  a  whole.  This  feeling,  the  strongest  perhaps 
that  he  possessed,  combined  with  a  passion  to  enter  as  an 
effective  cause  into  the  spectacle  he  loved,  was  responsible 
for  his  political  incarnation.  And  he  had  a  certain  half- 
perverse,  half-childish  love  of  mischief  which  he  was  not 
always  at  pains  to  restrain,  and  which  found  in  the  intrigues 
of  parties  and  groups  abundant  scope  for  exercise.  It  could 
not  have  found  so  much  scope  elsewhere,  and  was  the  motive 
power  of  much  of  his  political  action,  particularly  towards 


x  PREFACE 

the  end  of  his  time  in  Parliament.  After  his  retirement 
indeed,  when  politics  had  literally  become  nothing  but  a 
game  to  him,  he  would  watch  the  cards  as  they  fell  with 
complete  detachment  from  party  views:  "I  wish  I  was 
entering  politics  now  as  a  young  Tory  blood,"  was  a  frequent 
comment  on  public  events  during  his  last  years. 

Of  course,  he  had  his  own  way  of  putting  things,  which 
was  not  that  of  other  people,  and  this  brings  me  to  the  part 
in  life  as  to  which  both  friends  and  foes  are  agreed  that  he 
achieved  complete  success.  Whatever  else  he  was  or  was 
not,  everybody  is  agreed  that  he  was  the  greatest  English 
wit  since  Sheridan.  His  gently  modulated  voice  had  a  good 
deal  to  do  with  his  conversational  success,  and  the  bland 
quiet  manner  with  which  the  most  startling  remarks  would 
be  accompanied  gave  them  weight,  if  not  point.  Still,  even 
in  cold  print  many  of  his  sayings  and  appreciations  will  live 
as  long  as  men  laugh  from  intellectual  motives.  "I  do  not 
mind  Mr.  Gladstone  always  having  an  ace  up  his  sleeve, 
but  I  do  object  to  his  always  saying  that  Providence  put  it 
there, "  is  a  dictum  which  will  not  soon  be  forgotten.  That 
observation,  gently  drawled  out  one  evening  in  the  lobby  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  is  a  specimen  of  hundreds.  I  am 
persuaded  that  originally  he  had  no  intention  of  being  witty, 
but  supposed  his  quips  and  paradoxes  to  represent  the  bare 
facts  expressed  with  the  greatest  economy  of  language.  It 
is  certain  that  no  one  was  more  surprised  than  he  at  the 
entertainment  people  found  in  the  Letters  of  a  Besieged 
Resident.  He  soon  discovered  his  reputation  for  wit  and 
deliberately  made  use  of  it,  both  as  a  shield  and  as  a  weapon 
of  defence.  It  also  served  another  purpose.  There  was  a 
strong  tendency  to  indolence  in  him  that  was  gratified  by 
his  success  in  turning  off  awkward  or  puzzling  questions  with 
some  witty  or  irrelevant  remark.  If  this  analysis  is  correct, 
it  throws  light  on  the  nature  of  his  wit,  which  consisted 
largely  in  a  naive  and  shameless  revelation  of  the  Secret  de 
Polichinelle.  For  he  said  what  every  one  thought  but  did  n't 


PREFACE  xi 

dare  say.  The  originality  of  his  mind  really  consisted  in 
the  complete  absence  in  his  case  of  those  conventional 
superstructures  which  imprison  most  of  us.  When  he  replied 

to  some  one  who  asked  him  if  he  liked  Mme.  X ,  "Oh 

yes,  I  like  her  well  enough,  but  I  should  n't  mind  if  she 
dropped  down  dead  in  front  of  me  on  the  carpet,"  he  was 
only  saying  what  many  of  us  think  but  would  never  dream 
of  saying  even  to  ourselves  of  some  of  our  friends. 

It  is  a  commonplace  of  moralists  to  say  that  human 
nature  is  full  of  contradictions.  A  subtler  critic  of  man  than 
the  mere  moralist  would  add  that  much  of  men's  time  is 
spent  in  smoothing  out,  or,  at  all  events,  conciliating,  these 
contradictions.  We  choose  a  possible  type  of  humanity — 
Aristotle,  or  some  other  Greek,  gave  an  exhaustive  list  of 
them — and  see  ourselves  in  the  part  we  have  selected. 
According  to  our  imaginative  power  and  our  strength  of 
will  we  succeed  more  or  less  in  playing  that  part  at  least  for 
social  purposes.  Years  pass  and  the  mask  grows  to  the  face, 
as  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Beerbohm's  Happy  Hypocrite,  and 
our  friends  and  acquaintances  cease  in  time  to  distinguish 
between  our  pose  and  our  character.  But  there  are  mo- 
ments when  the  mask  cracks  and  close  observws  have  their 
surprises. 

Mr.  Labouchere  gave  up  early  in  life  any  consecutive 
attempt  to  make  himself  appear  different  to  his  real  nature. 
A  fragment  of  an  early  diary  which  I  have  utilised  does 
indeed  discuss  the  possibilities  of  success  to  the  writer,  and 
criticises,  in  scathing  terms,  achievements  up-to-date.  But 
this  document,  interesting  and  amusing  as  it  is,  is  itself  but 
a  piece  of  boyish  introspectiveness.  In  point  of  fact  he  was 
a  terribly  sincere  person,  partly  from  pride  and  partly  from 
indolence.  Had  he  been  willing  to  condescend  to  insincerity, 
he  would  have  been  too  lazy  to  do  so  for  long.  Here,  then, 
was  an  additional  stumbling-block.  It  is  easy  enough  to 
understand  a  pose,  or  even  a  succession  of  poses,  but  a  person 
who  says  neither  more  nor  less  than  exactly  what  he  means, 


Xll 


PREFACE 


and  means  exactly  what  he  says,  not  because  he  thinks  he 
ought  to  do  so,  or  wishes  to  be  understood  as  doing  so,  but 
because  so,  and  not  otherwise,  his  nature  spontaneously 
expresses  itself,  is,  in  our  present  social  state,  almost  unin- 
telligible. What  saved  him  under  these  circumstances  from 
becoming  a  "prophet"  was  the  pliability  of  intelligence 
that  enabled  him  to  understand  other  people  and  the  sense 
of  humour  that  enabled  him  to  enjoy  them. 

I  have  selected  from  the  voluminous  correspondence  put 
at  my  disposal  only  those  letters  which  throw  most  light  on 
Mr.  Labouchere's  state  of  mind  and  the  part  he  played  in 
political  events  with  which  he  was  connected. 

I  have  to  thank  my  many  relatives  and  friends  who  have 
allowed  me  to  make  use  of  their  letters  from  Mr.  Labouchere, 
and  also  my  cousin,  M.  Georges  Labouchere,  for  communi- 
cating the  result  of  his  researches  on  the  life  of  my  great- 
grandfather. Among  old  friends  of  Mr.  Labouchere,  who 
have  given  me  personal  reminiscences  of  him,  I  have  espe- 
cially to  thank  Mrs.  Emily  Crawford,  Mr.  Wilfrid  Blunt, 
Lord  Welby,  Sir  Audley  Gosling,  and  Mr.  Robert  Bennett, 
the  editor  of  Truth,  whose  help  has  been  invaluable  in  the 
narrative  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  founding  of  Truth  and  of  its 
subsequent  fortunes.  Most  of  all,  my  thanks  are  due  to 
Mr.  Thomas  Hart  Davies,  without  whose  constant  sym- 
pathy and  assistance  this  biography  could  not  have  been 
written. 

ALGAR  L.  THOROLD. 

12  CATHERINE  STREET,  WESTMINSTER. 
August  15,  1913. 


CONTENTS 
CHAPTER  I 

THE  LABOUCHERE   FAMILY 

PAGE 

The  Huguenots  of  Orthez — Youth  of  Pierre-Cesar — Exile — The  Dutch 
counting-house — A  double  ruff  and  a  bid  for  a  bride — Napoleon 
and  peace — Fouche" — The  French  agent — Ouvrard — The  wrath  of 
Caesar — The  French  loan — Residence  in  England — Lord  Taunton 
— Mr.  John  Labouchere  ........  I 

CHAPTER  II 

CHILDHOOD  AND   YOUTH 
(1831-1853) 

Birth  of  Henry  Labouchere — Early  education — His  first  mot — Eton 
days — The  young  pugilist — The  toper — Views  on  fagging — 
Trinity  College,  Cambridge — Insubordination — Suspension — His 
defence — He  lives  ata  London  tavern — Severe  judgment  of  himself — 
Travels  with  a  bear-leader — Wiesbaden — Voyage  to  Mexico — 
Gambling  and  good  resolutions — Letter  to  his  tutor  .  .  .  16 

CHAPTER  III 

TRAVELS   AND  DIPLOMACY 

(1853-1864) 

Travels  in  Mexico — In  love — The  Chippeway  Indians — In  New  York — 
His  American  sympathies — His  views  on  American  education — 
On  American  diplomats — On  American  girls — Becomes  attache"  at 
Washington — Mr.  Crampton — Gambling  again — The  Irish  patriot 
— Views  on  diplomatic  negotiations — At  Munich — Stockholm — 
Frankfort — Bismarck  at  Frankfort — Similarity  of  their  opinions 

xiii 


xiv  CONTENTS 

FACE 

about  diplomacy — His  popularity  at  Frankfort — Petersburg — In 
love  again — His  opinion  of  Russians — Anecdotes — Dresden — 
Economical  family  at  Marburg — Republic  of  Parana — Revolution 
in  Florence — Constantinople — His  stories  about  Lord  Bailing — 
Close  of  diplomatic  career — Mrs.  Crawford's  estimate  of  his 
character  and  remarks  on  his  diplomatic  career — Memoir  of  Henry 
Labouchere,  by  Wilfrid  Scawen  Blunt  ......  38 

CHAPTER  IV 

PARLIAMENTARY  AMBITIONS 
(1866-1869) 

Why  men  enter  Parliament — New  Windsor — His  agreement  with  Sir 
Henry  Hoare — Imprudent  choice  of  agents — Election — Is  unseated 
on  petition — Repartee  before  Special  Commission — His  line  of 
defence  in  the  Times — Another  letter  on  the  subject — His  maiden 
speech — Reminiscences  of  the  Windsor  election — Anecdote  about 
Lord  Taunton — Becomes  member  for  Middlesex — His  speeches  in 
the  House — General  Election  of  1868 — Lord  George  Hamilton 
— His  quarrel  with  Lord  Enfield — The  Times  on  the  quarrel 
— Nomination  of  candidates — Conservative  rowdies — the  poll — 
Dignified  speech — Absurd  reminiscence — Henry  Irving  at  Brentford 
— General  Election  of  1874 — Is  defeated  at  Nottingham  .  .  74 

CHAPTER  V 


(1864-1880) 

His  connection  with  the  Daily  News — He  buys  a  share — Manager  of 
the  Queen's  Theatre — Time  and  the  Hour — Dearer  than  Life — 
Contretemps — Financial  loss — Poor  opinion  of  artists — A  Bohemian 
— His  knowledge  of  London — Edmund  Yates  tells  how  he  came  on 
the  staff  of  the  World— His  city  articles— Trial  of  Abbott  at  the 
Guild  Hall — A  calculator — Labouchere  and  Grenville  Murray — 
He  leaves  the  staff  of  the  World — Journey  with  Mr.  Bellew — 
Adventure  with  Dumas  pere — With  Dumas  fils — His  visit  to 
Newgate — Sensations  as  a  man  about  to  be  hanged — Remarks 
about  the  Claimant — Immense  popularity  of  Truth — The  Lying  Club 
in  Co.  Durham 95 


CONTENTS  rv 

CHAPTER  VI 

THE   BESIEGED   RESIDENT 

(September,  iSjo-February,  1871) 

PAGB 

He  replaces  Mr.  Crawford  as  correspondent — Mrs.  Crawford's  impres- 
sions of  him — Chaos  at  the  Post  Office — Immediate  events  leading 
up  to  the  siege — His  account  of  how  the  news  of  Sedan  was  re- 
ceived in  Paris — The  Prussians  at  Versailles — How  he  got  his 
letters  to  London — Ennui — Letter  to  his  mother — Theatrical 
behaviour  of  the  Parisians — Further  letters  to  his  mother — His 
wardrobe — His  hat — The  Gaulois — New  Year's  address  to  the 
Prussians — His  opinion  of  French  journalists — His  estimate  of 
General  Trochu — Meals  during  the  siege — Castor  and  Pollux — 
Another  letter  to  his  mother — The  leg  of  mutton  and  the  senti- 
mental Prussian  soldier — His  departure  from  Paris — How  he 
behaved  when  under  fire  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  119 

CHAPTER  VII 

LABOUCHERE  AND  BRADLAUGH 

The  General  Election  of  1880 — The  "Radical"  colleague — A  faithful 
constituency — Mr.  Bradlaugh  and  the  oath — A  House  divided 
against  itself — Labouchere's  views  on  religion — His  support  of 
Bradlaugh — Unscrupulous  use  of  the  affaire  Bradlaugh  by  the 
Opposition — Victory  of  Mr.  Bradlaugh — His  upright  character  and 
final  popularity  in  the  House — Mr.  Gladstone's  tribute — Mr. 
Labouchere  on  his  colleague — The  parallel  of  Wilkes  .  .  .142 

CHAPTER  VIII 

LABOUCHERE  AND   IRELAND 
(1880-1883) 

Ireland  in  1880 — The  Land  League — Outrages — Lord  Cowper  and  Mr. 
Forster  demand  suppression  of  Habeas  Corpus — Mr.  Gladstone's 
hesitation — He  yields  under  threat  of  Lord  Cowper's  resignation — 
Introduction  by  Forster  of  Bills  for  the  Protection  of  Life  and 
Property  in  Ireland,  January,  1881 — Labouchere's  Irish  views — Not 
at  first  a  Home  Ruler — Labouchere  criticises  Forster's  measure  in 
the  House — The  arrest  of  Parnell — His  liberation — The  "under- 
standing" with  Mr.  Gladstone — Murder  of  Lord  Frederick 
Cavendish  and  Mr.  Burke — Renewed  coercion  opposed  by  Mr. 
Labouchere — He  negotiates  between  the  Government  and  Irish 


xvi  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

leaders  in  order  to  modify  the  Coercion  Bill — Correspondence 
with  Mr.  Chamberlain — Interviews  with  Mr.  Parnell — Identity  of 
his  Irish  policy  with  that  of  Mr.  Chamberlain  ....  165 

CHAPTER  IX 

LABOUCHERE    AND    MR.     GLADSTONE'S    EGYPTIAN     POLICY 

Mr.  Gladstone  and  Egypt — A  legacy  from  Disraeli — Cyprus  and  the 
Berlin  Congress — The  "Comedy  of  the  Liars" — The  Anglo-French 
Condominium — Ismail — Nubar  and  Sir  Rivers  Wilson — Sir  Evelyn 
Baring — Deposition  of  Ismail — Khedive  Tewfik — Revolt — Arabi 
Pasha — Mr.  Wilfrid  Blunt — Labouchere  and  Egypt — Labouchere 
drops  his  burden  of  Egyptian  bonds — A  letter  to  Sir  Charles  Dilke — 
Labouchere  and  military  occupation — The  Egyptian  Government 
and  the  debt — The  champions  of  Arabi — Speeches  in  the  House — 
The  Soudan — General  Gordon — Correspondence  between  Labou- 
chere and  Chamberlain;  between  Labouchere  and  Mr.  Blunt 
— Letters  from  Arabi  to  Mr.  Labouchere — A  later  letter  to  Mr. 
Blunt 190 

CHAPTER  X 
HENRY  LABOUCHERE'S  RADICALISM 

Labouchere's  political  attitude — His  faith  in  Chamberlain — Despair  at 
Chamberlain's  secession — His  article  in  the  Fortnightly,  1884 — 
The  Radical  creed — The  House  of  Lords  and  the  Crown — The 
Church — The  Land  Laws — The  Royal  Family — Female  suffrage — 
Whigs  more  to  be  detested  than  Tories  .....  215 

CHAPTER  XI 

IN  OPPOSITION 

(June,  i885-December,  1885) 

Sir  Henry  Lucy  on  Labouchere — "The  friendly  broker" — Lord  Salis- 
bury's First  Administration — Irish  and  Tories — Labouchere,  Healy, 
and  Chamberlain — The  General  Election — The  Midlothian  mani- 
festo— A  letter  from  Mr.  Davitt — From  Mr.  Parnell  and  Lord 
Randolph  Churchill — Letters  from  Mr.  Healy — Labouchere's 
letter  to  the  Times  about  Home  Rule — Correspondence  between 
Mr.  Labouchere  and  Mr.  Chamberlain  .....  250 


CONTENTS  xvii 

CHAPTER  XII 

THE  SPLIT   IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY 

PAGE 

Legislators  in  correspondence — Further  letters  from  Mr.  Chamberlain 
and  Mr.  Healy — Resignation  of  Mr.  Chamberlain — Labouchere's 
efforts  to  reconcile  Mr.  Chamberlain  with  the  Cabinet — His 
disappointment 304 

CHAPTER  XIII 

SOME  CONSEQUENCES  OF  BALFOUR's  COERCION  POLICY 

Lord  Salisbury's  Second  Administration — The  new  Coercion  Bill — 
"Parnellism  and  Crime" — The  facsimile  letter — Mr.  Healy  on 
the  condition  of  Ireland — Radical  demonstration  in  Hyde  Park — 
Mr.  Labouchere  on  a  waggon — He  goes  to  Michelstown — The 
famous  meeting — He  describes  the  meeting  in  the  House — Lord 
Randolph  Churchill's  criticism — Truth  on  the  Michelstown  murders 
— More  incriminating  letters — Mr.  Labouchere  enters  the  lists — 
The  Parnell  Commission — Correspondence  with  Pigott — First  inter- 
view— Correspondence  with  Irishmen  in  America — Letter  from 
Patrick  Egan — Letters  from  Parnell — Pigott  and  the  Attorney- 
General  J57 

CHAPTER  XIV 

COLLAPSE  OF   PIGOTT 

Lord  Russell's  cross-examination  of  Pigott — The  disappearance  of 
Pigott — His  confession  to  Mr.  Labouchere — Mr.  Lewis  returns  the 
confession — The  Commission  hears  from  Pigott — He  sends  the 
confession,  under  cover,  to  Mr.  Shannon — The  confession  read  out 
in  court — Mr.  Labouchere  in  the  witness-box — Mr.  Sala  describes 
the  scene  at  24  Grosvenor  Gardens — Pigott's  end — Mr.  Labou- 
chere's compassion  for  his  orphans — Letter  from  Dr.  Walsh — 
Mr.  Labouchere  and  Primrose  dames — Trying  to  hoax  Labby  .  391 

CHAPTER  XV 

MR.   LABOUCHERE  NOT   INCLUDED  IN   THE  CABINET 

Speeches  on  the  Triple  Alliance — He  is  not  in  the  Cabinet — Queen 
Victoria's  objection  to  the  editor  of  Truth — Mr.  Gladstone's 
correspondence  with  Mr.  Labouchere — The  indignation  of  North- 
ampton— Mr.  Labouchere's  desire  to  be  appointed  Ambassador  at 
Washington — Another  disappointment  for  him  ....  409 


xviii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  WAR   IN   SOUTH  AFRICA 

PAGE 
The  Jameson  Raid  and  the  South  African  War — Mr.  Labouchere  on  the 

Jameson  Raid  Commission.         .......     426 

CHAPTER  XVII 

LABOUCHERE   AND   SOCIALISM 
Mr.  Labouchere  on  Socialism — Discussion  with  Mr.  Hyndman       .         .     458 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

MR.    LABOUCHERE   AS  A   JOURNALIST 
Mr.  Labouchere  as  Journalist  and  Litigant — Narrative  of  Truth      .         .491 

CHAPTER  XIX 
THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

Retirement  from  Parliament — Farewell  to  Electors — Some  correspond- 
ence— Last  days  .  .  .  .  ....  .       517 

INDEX  .........       541 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PACK 

RIGHT  HON.   HENRY    LABOUCHERE,    P.C.  .       Frontispiece 

From  a  photograph  by  Messrs.  Brogi  of  Florence,  taken  in  1905 
at  Villa  Cristina,  Florence. 


FACSIMILE    LETTER   SENT   BY   BALLOON   POST  .       126 


THE  LIFE  OF 
HENRY  LABOUCHERE 


THE  LIFE  OF  LABOUCHERE 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  LABOUCHERE  FAMILY 

OOME  forty  miles  south  of  Bayonne,  on  the  right  bank  of 
<•)  the  Gave,  lies  the  little  town  of  Orthez,  the  ancient 
capital  of  B6arn.  Famous  for  the  obstinacy  of  its  resistance 
to  the  apostolic  spirit  of  Louis  XIV.  and  the  excellence  of 
its  manufactured  cloth,  Orthez  was  further  distinguished 
during  the  Wars  of  Religion  by  the  possession  of  a  Protestant 
university  founded  by  Jeanne  d'Albret  in  which  Theodore 
Beza  was  professor.  In  1664,  the  most  Christian  King  sent 
his  intendant  Foucault  to  deal  with  the  nest  of  heretics. 
Foucault  did  not  waste  time  in  theological  subtleties,  but 
gave  the  inhabitants  twenty  days  in  which  to  conform  under 
penalty  of  a  dragonnade.  They  did  so  unanimously,  but 
there  still  remain  more  Protestants  in  Orthez  than  in  any 
other  town  of  B6arn. 

Among  the  cloth  merchants  of  Orthez  none  were  more 
distinguished  than  the  Labouch&res.  According  to  the 
Fr£res  Haag,  the  compilers  of  La  France  Protestante,  their 
name  should  be  Barrier  de  Labouchere,  the  patronymic 
which  they  came  to  adopt  being  in  reality  the  name  of  a 
property  in  the  possession  of  the  family.  The  earliest 
known  ancestor  of  the  Laboucheres  seems  to  have  been  a 


2  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

certain  Jean  Guyon  Barrier,  who  married  in  1621  one 
Catherine  de  la  Broue. 

Pierre-Cesar,  the  founder  of  the  British  branch  of  the 
family  and  the  grandfather  of  the  subject  of  this  memoir, 
was  born  at  The  Hague  in  1772.  He  was  the  second  son  of 
Matthieu  Labouchere  and  Marie-Madeleine  Moliere.  His 
father,  who,  in  consequence  of  the  revocation  of  the  Edict 
of  Nantes,  had  been  sent  to  England  for  his  education,  had 
subsequently  settled  in  Holland.  Pierre-C6sar  was  sent  at 
the  age  of  thirteen  to  learn  his  uncle  Pierre's  business  at 
Nantes,1  where  he  remained  until  1790,  at  which  date  he 
entered  the  house  of  Hope  at  Amsterdam  as  French  clerk. 
In  this  humble  position  he  laid  the  foundations  of  the  great 
fortune  and  financial  career  which  were  to  be  his.  The  rise 
of  the  young  French  clerk  was  rapid.  In  six  years  he  was  a 
partner  in  the  house  of  Hope  and  had  married  Dorothy, 
sister  of  Alexander  Baring,  who  had  become  a  partner  in 
the  Dutch  firm  at  the  same  time  as  his  French  brother-in- 
law.  The  well-known  story  of  the  clever  ruse  by  which 
Pierre-C6sar  won  the  hand  of  his  bride  and  also  his  partner- 
ship in  the  house  of  Hope  was  told  to  the  present  writer 
some  twenty  years  ago  by  the  Rev.  Alexander  Baring2  as 
follows: 

Pierre-C£sar  was  sent  by  Mr.  John  Hope  to  England  to 
see  Sir  Francis  Baring  on  some  business,  and  fell  in  love 
with  Sir  Francis 's  third  daughter  Dorothy.  Before  leaving 
England  he  asked  Sir  Francis  to  permit  him  to  become 
engaged  to  his  daughter.  Sir  Francis  refused.  Pierre- 
C6sar  then  said:  "Would  it  make  any  difference  to  your 
decision  if  you  knew  that  Mr.  Hope  was  about  to  take  me 
into  partnership?"  Sir  Francis  unhesitatingly  admitted  that 


1  Presumably  Uncle  Pierre  had  conformed  and  stuck  to  it. 

»  The  portraits  of  Pierre-Ce'sar  Labouchere  and  Dorothy  his  wife,  now  in 
my  possession,  were  then  at  Farnham  Castle,  and  Mr.  Baring  was  visiting 
my  father,  the  then  Bishop  of  Winchester,  when  he  related  to  me  this  anecdote 
of  my  great-grandparents. 


THE  LABOUCHERE  FAMILY  3 

it  would.  Pierre-C4sar  then  went  back  to  Holland  and  sug- 
gested to  Mr.  Hope  that  he  might  be  taken  into  partner- 
ship. On  Mr.  Hope  discouraging  the  idea,  he  said:  "Would 
it  make  any  difference  to  your  decision  if  you  knew  that  I 
was  engaged  to  the  daughter  of  Sir  Francis  Baring?"  Mr. 
Hope  replied,  "Certainly."  Whereupon  the  wily  clerk 
said:  "Well,  I  am  engaged  to  Miss  Dorothy  Baring."  That 
very  day  he  was  able  to  write  to  Sir  Francis  announcing  the 
news  of  his  admission  to  partnership  in  the  house  of  Hope, 
and  in  the  same  letter  he  claimed  the  hand  of  his  bride. " 

The  following  picture  of  Pierre-Cesar  by  a  contemporary 
is  interesting.  The  writer  was  Vincent  Nolte,  for  many 
years  a  clerk  in  the  house  of  Hope  at  Amsterdam.  "Mr. 
Labouchere  was  at  that  time  but  twenty-two,  yet  ere  long 
assumed  the  highly  respectable  position  of  head  of  the  firm, 
the  first  in  the  world,  and  studied  the  manners  of  a  French 
courtier  previous  to  the  Revolution:  these  he  soon  made  so 
thoroughly  his  own,  that  they  seemed  to  be  a  part  of  his  own 
nature.  He  made  a  point  of  distinguishing  himself  in  every- 
thing he  undertook  by  a  certain  perfection,  and  carried  this 
feeling  so  far  that,  on  account  of  the  untractable  lack  of 
elasticity  of  his  body  and  a  want  of  ear  for  music  which  nature 
had  denied  him,  he  for  eighteen  years  deemed  it  necessary 
to  take  dancing-lessons,  because  he  saw  that  others  surpassed 
him  in  the  graceful  accomplishment.  It  was  almost  painful 
to  see  him  dance.  The  old  school  required,  in  the  French 
quadrille,  some  entrechats  and  one  or  two  pirouettes,  and  the 
delay  they  occasioned  him  always  threw  him  out  of  time. 
I  have  often  seen  the  old  gentleman,  already  more  than  fifty, 
return  from  a  quadrille  covered  with  perspiration.  Properly 
speaking,  he  had  no  refined  education,  understood  but  very 

1  The  story  is  confirmed  by  the  Hon.  Francis  Henry  Baring.  Mr.  F.  H. 
Baring  was  told  it  by  the  late  Thomas  Charles  Baring,  M.P.,  the  son  of  the 
Bishop  of  Durham.  Mr.  T.  C.  Baring  was  for  many  years  a  partner  in  Baring 
Bros.,  where  he  probably  heard  the  story.  Sir  Henry  Lucy,  in  his  More  Pat- 
sages  by  the  Way,  mentions  that  Mr.  Labouchere  himself  believed  the  story 
to  be  true. 


4  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

little  of  the  fine  arts,  and,  notwithstanding  his  shrewdness 
and  quickness  of  perception,  possessed  no  natural  powers  of 
wit,  and  consequently  was  all  the  more  eager  to  steal  the 
humour  of  other  people.  He  once  repeated  to  myself  as  a 
witty  remark  of  his  own  to  one  of  his  clerks,  the  celebrated 
answer  of  De  Sartines,  a  former  chief  of  the  French  police, 
to  one  of  his  subordinates  who  asked  for  an  increase  of  pay 
in  the  following  words:  'You  do  not  give  me  enough — still 
I  must  live!'  The  reply  he  got  was:  'I  do  not  perceive  the 
necessity  of  that!'  Now,  so  hard-hearted  a  response  was 
altogether  foreign  to  Mr.  Labouchere's  disposition,  as  he 
was  a  man  of  most  excellent  and  generous  feeling.  He  had, 
assuredly,  without  intention,  fallen  into  the  singular  habit 
of  speaking  his  mother-tongue — the  French — with  an  almost 
English  intonation,  and  English  with  a  strong  French  accent. 
But  he  was  most  of  all  remarkable  for  the  chivalric  idea  of 
honour  in  mercantile  transactions,  which  he  constantly 
evinced,  and  which  I  never,  during  my  whole  life,  met  with 
elsewhere,  in  the  same  degree,  however  numerous  may  have 
been  the  high-minded  and  honourable  merchants  with  whom 
I  have  been  thrown  in  contact.  He  fully  possessed  what  the 
French  call  des  idees  chevaleresques."1 

In  1800  Pierre-Ce'sar  re-established  himself  for  a  time  in 
England,  whither  Hope's  had  been  temporarily  transferred 
after  the  invasion  of  Holland  by  Pichegru.  A  few  years 
later  he  became  involved  in  an  interesting  and  delicate 
political  negotiation. 

In  April,  1810,  Napoleon,  whose  marriage  with  Marie 
Louise  had  filled  him  with  peaceful  aspirations,  surveyed  the 
world  that  he  had  conquered  and  decided  that,  for  the 
moment,  he  had  conquered  enough.  To  consolidate  his 
empire  and  his  dependencies,  peace  was  necessary.  The 
only  obstacle  to  peace  was  England — England  who  had  never 
bowed  before  his  eagles  and  only  grudgingly  admitted  his 

1  Vincent  Nolte,  Fifty  Years  in  Both  Hemispheres.  American  translation, 
1854. 


THE  LABOUCHERE  FAMILY  5 

existence.  Negotiation  with  England  was  imperative,  but 
how  to  negotiate,  and  by  what  means?  What  had  he  to 
offer  Mr.  Pitt?  A  substantial  argument  presented  itself 
in  the  condition  of  Holland.  Louis  Buonaparte  had  dis- 
appointed his  autocratic  brother  as  an  allied  sovereign,  and 
it  was  the  Emperor's  intention  to  remove  him  from  the  Dutch 
throne  and  unite  the  whole  of  the  Netherlands  to  the  Empire. 
This  course  could  not  fail  to  be  disagreeable  to  the  English, 
who  would  then  be  flanked  by  the  French  on  two  sides.  So 
it  occurred  to  Napoleon  that,  by  leaving  Holland  her  inde- 
pendence, he  would  be  giving  England  a  substantial  quid  pro 
quo  for  the  withdrawal  of  British  troops  from  the  Peninsula. 
Evidently,  however,  he  could  not  himself  directly  open  nego- 
tiations. Not  only  would  such  action  lower  his  prestige, 
but  it  was  doubtful  whether  those  infernal  islanders  would 
consent  to  treat  with  him.  The  negotiations  had  to  be 
opened  by  way  of  Holland.  King  Louis'  Government  must 
not  appear  in  it.  There  were  prudent  men  of  affairs  there 
who  could  be  trusted  with  the  delicate  task.  Louis  was 
delighted  with  the  idea.  He  would  retain  his  estate  as  an 
independent  sovereign,  the  commerce  of  Europe  would 
once  more  circulate  freely  to  the  replenishment  of  his  sub- 
jects' coffers,  and  his  terrible  brother's  ambitions  would  be 
effectively  circumscribed. 

Fouch6,  who,  unknown  to  the  Emperor,  had  already  sent 
a  private  agent  to  London  to  discuss  with  the  British  Cabinet 
possible  conditions  of  peace,  entered  enthusiastically  into 
the  project  and  designated  Pierre-Cesar  as  in  every  way  the 
most  suitable  person  to  be  entrusted  with  the  affair.  His 
position  in  the  world  of  business  as  a  partner  of  Hope  in 
Amsterdam  and  of  Baring  in  London  was  of  the  highest,  and 
his  father-in-law,  Sir  Francis  Baring,  who  had  been  one  of 
the  principal  directors  of  "John  Company,"  was  an  intimate 
friend  of  Wellesley,  the  English  Foreign  Secretary,  with 
whom  he  had  spent  some  time  in  India. 

Labouchere  was  to  present  himself  informally  to  Wellesley, 


6  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

not  as  an  envoy  of  the  King  of  Holland  and  still  less  as  the 
mouthpiece  of  Napoleon,  but  in  the  names  of  Roell,  Van 
Der  Heim,  and  Mollerus,  three  Dutch  statesmen  who  pro- 
fessed to  have  been  initiated  by  their  King  into  all  the  secrets 
of  the  French  Cabinet.  He  was  to  explain  to  the  English 
Foreign  Secretary  that  the  marriage  of  Napoleon  had  altered 
his  position  and  had  caused  him  to  desire  the  peace  of  Europe 
as  a  necessary  condition  of  the  consolidation  of  his  Empire, 
and  that,  in  order  to  induce  the  English  Government  to 
abandon  hostilities,  he  was  prepared  to  forego  his  intention 
of  uniting  Holland  to  his  dominions.  The  Dutch  Cabinet, 
aware  of  the  Emperor's  views,  had  hastened  to  open  informal 
communications  in  order  at  one  stroke  to  secure  the  peace 
of  Europe  and  to  retain  the  independence  of  their  country. 
All  having  been  arranged,  Labouch£re  crossed  from  Brielle 
to  Yarmouth  and  posted  to  London  on  his  secret  mission. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  moment  was  not  well  chosen  for 
its  success.  After  the  retirement,  on  the  Catholic  question, 
of  Grenville  and  Grey,  who  had  continued  the  Fox -Pitt 
coalition,  the  old  Duke  of  Portland,  who  had  been  Home 
Secretary  in  Mr.  Pitt's  first  Government,  became  Prime 
Minister.  He  maintained  his  power  with  difficulty :  Canning 
and  Castlereagh,  respectively  Home  Secretary  and  Foreign 
Minister,  quarrelled,  left  the  Cabinet  in  order  to  fight  a  duel, 
and  did  not  return  to  it.  Lord  Chatham  did  not  survive 
the  results  of  the  expedition  to  Walcheren,  and  shortly 
afterwards  Portland  himself  died.  Mr.  Perceval  and  Lord 
Wellesley  were  the  most  important  persons  left  in  the  Cabinet. 
Perceval,  who  had  been  Portland's  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer, kissed  hands  as  Prime  Minister  on  December  2, 
1809,  and  Wellesley  took  the  place  of  Bathurst  as  Foreign 
Secretary.  Perceval  was  a  clever  lawyer  and  a  bitter  and 
prejudiced  Tory;  Wellesley's  hereditary  politics  were  quali- 
fied by  suave  manners,  an  enlightened  spirit,  and  an  unusual 
talent  for  clear  and  eloquent  statement.  Less  passionate 
than  Perceval,  he  had  not  the  Prime  Minister's  influence 


THE  LABOUCHERE  FAMILY  7 

with  the  party,  but  he  enjoyed  an  immense  reputation  in 
the  country  which  was  daily  increased  by  the  news  of  his 
brother's  gallant  deeds  at  the  front.  The  position  of  the 
Government,  in  spite  of  their  parliamentary  majority,  was 
not  very  strong.  They  held  their  power  by  that  most 
uncertain  tenure — success  in  arms. 

The  opposition,  led  by  Grenville  and  Grey,  rejoiced  in 
the  avowed  favour  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  whom  an  accident, 
such  was  the  state  of  the  King's  health,  might  any  day  call 
to  the  regency,  and  even  to  the  throne.  The  Prince  had 
openly  declared  himself  against  the  war,  and  the  leaders  of 
>pposition  argued  forcibly,  in  and  out  of  season,  against 
its  continuance.  The  militarism  of  the  country  was  not, 
however,  to  be  checked  in  this  way.  The  news  of  one  victory 
outweighed  much  argument.  But  news  was  not  always  of 
victories.  Forty  thousand  English  troops  had  been  forced 
to  retire  before  Antwerp,  with  a  loss  of  fifteen  thousand  from 
death  and  disease.  This  calamity  more  than  balanced  the 
victory  of  Talavera.  Perceval  stuck  to  his  war  policy  with 
blind  and  furious  determination.  He  no  doubt  felt  that  his 
one  chance  of  retaining  office  was  to  do  so.  Wellesley,  on 
the  other  hand,  in  spite  of  the  glory  won  by  his  family 
through  the  war,  was  open  to  reason  on  the  subject.  He  had 
already  received  politely  Captain  Fagan,  a  high  officer  in 
Cond6's  army,  whom  Fouch6  had  sent  over  on  his  own  re- 
sponsibility to  feel  the  way  toward  conditions  of  peace.  He 
had  received  him  politely,  but  had  answered  him  evasively 
to  the  effect  that  the  King's  Government  was  by  no  means 
bent  on  continuing  the  war  at  all  costs,  but  would  gladly 
entertain  proposals  of  peace  if  they  were  advanced  by 
responsible,  fully  accredited  agents  and  were  compatible 
with  the  honour  of  the  two  nations.  Labouchere  was  unable 
to  get  anything  more  definite  out  of  him.  But  Wellesley, 
reserved  with  the  French  agent,  opened  himself  more  fully 
to  his  old  friend  Sir  Francis  Baring.  To  him  he  explained 
that  no  member  of  the  Cabinet  believed  in  Napoleon's  good 


8  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

faith.  He  personally  saw  nothing  in  Labouchere's  mission 
but  a  trap  laid  for  English  public  opinion  by  the  supreme 
adventurer,  and  judged  that  nothing  was  to  be  gained  by 
playing  into  his  hand.  Moreover,  the  Government  would 
never  abandon  Spain  to  Joseph  or  Sicily  to  Murat,  and 
would  in  no  circumstances  consent  to  the  loss  of  Malta. 
The  fullest  preliminary  assurances  on  these  points  were  the 
sine  qua  non  of  any  successful  negotiation. 

Sir  Francis  Baring,  who  was  a  sagacious  man,  communi- 
cated this  conversation,  together  with  his  personal  com- 
ments thereon,  to  Labouchere.  It  was  evident,  he  said, 
that  England  had  grown  accustomed  to  the  war,  and  would 
not  abandon  it  except  under  the  stress  of  a  reverse  impossible 
to  predict,  and  that  the  nation  would  never  lose  all  they  had 
fought  for  in  the  Peninsula  by  yielding  Spain  to  a  Buonaparte 
prince.  He  suggested,  without  any  official  authority,  an 
arrangement  which,  leaving  Malta  to  England,  would  give 
Naples  to  Murat,  Sicily  to  the  Neapolitan  Bourbons,  and 
would  restore  Spain  to  Ferdinand,  save  for  the  provinces  on 
the  French  side  of  the  Ebro,  which  might  be  given  to  Na- 
poleon as  an  indemnity  for  the  expenses  of  the  war.  Con- 
vinced that  nothing  further  was  to  be  obtained  in  London, 
Labouchere  returned  to  Holland  and  sent  to  King  Louis  at 
Paris  the  meagre  results  of  his  mission.  Unfortunately,  Na- 
poleon was  as  well  accustomed  to  war  as  England.  As  soon  as 
he  had  received  Labouchere's  reply,  he  gave  up  the  notion  of 
using  Holland  as  a  weapon  against  England  and  determined 
to  settle  his  affairs  with  his  brother  independently  of  the 
general  situation.  Nevertheless,  he  did  not  wish  to  entirely 
let  fall  the  indirect  relations  on  which  Labouchere  had 
entered  with  the  English  Cabinet,  and  sent  him  a  reply  to 
be  transmitted  through  Sir  Francis  Baring  to  Lord  Wellesley. 
The  Emperor's  reply  was  perhaps  more  statesmanlike  than 
might  have  been  expected.  If  England  was  accustomed  to 
the  war,  the  French  were  even  more  in  their  element  on  the 
battlefield.  France  was  victorious,  rich,  prosperous,  obliged, 


THE  LABOUCHERE  FAMILY  9 

no  doubt,  to  pay  a  high  price  for  sugar  and  coffee,  but  not 
reduced  to  the  point  of  doing  without  those  luxuries.  She 
could  support  the  situation  for  a  long  time  yet.  If,  in  these 
conditions,  he  thought  of  peace,  it  was  because  in  the  new 
position  created  by  his  marriage  with  an  Austrian  archduchess 
he  was  anxious  to  terminate  the  struggle  between  the  old 
order  and  the  new.  As  for  the  kingdoms  he  had  created, 
it  was  not  to  be  thought  that  he  would  sacrifice  any  of  them. 
Never  would  he  dethrone  his  brothers  Joseph,  Murat,  Louis, 
and  Jerome.  But  the  destinies  of  Portugal  and  Sicily  were 
still  in  suspense ;  these  two  countries,  Hanover,  the  Hanseatic 
cities,  and  the  Spanish  colonies  might  still  be  dealt  with. 
In  any  case,  it  might  be  possible  to  mitigate  the  horrors  of 
war.  He  had  been  obliged  to  reply  by  the  decrees  of  Berlin 
and  Milan  to  the  orders-in-council  issued  by  the  British 
Cabinet,  and  the  sea  had  been  converted  into  a  stage  for 
violence  of  every  description.  This  state  of  things  was 
perhaps  more  dangerous  for  England  than  for  France,  since 
an  Anglo-American  war  might  easily  result.  If  the  English 
Government  agreed  with  these  appreciations  they  had  but 
to  relax  their  laws  of  blockade.  France  would  follow  suit, 
Holland  and  the  Hanseatic  towns  would  retain  their  inde- 
pendence, the  sea  would  be  opened  to  neutrals,  the  war  would 
lose  some  of  its  bitterness,  and,  possibly,  in  time  a  complete 
understanding  between  the  two  nations  might  be  reached. 
Such  was  Napoleon's,  on  the  whole,  judicious  reply,  and  on 
these  terms,  and  on  these  terms  only,  was  Labouchere 
authorised  to  make  any  further  attempts  at  negotiation. 

But  Napoleon  counted  without  Fouche.  That  brilliant 
and  unscrupulous  person,  who  had  been  recently  raised 
to  the  important  Ministry  of  Police  with  the  title  of  Due 
d'Otrante,  was  a  peace  fanatic.  In  every  day  that  the  war 
continued  he  saw  danger  to  the  Empire.  The  failure  of  the 
Labouchere  mission,  in  which  he  no  doubt  felt  his  self-love 
wounded,  since  he  had  himself  indicated  the  envoy,  dis- 
appointed him  profoundly.  He  determined  to  bring  about 


io  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

peace  himself,  and  relied  on  his  success  to  justify  himself  in 
the  Emperor's  eyes.  It  would  have  been  a  dangerous  thing 
to  do  under  any  government:  it  was  a  piece  of  insanity 
under  a  master  so  absolute,  so  vigilant,  as  Napoleon.  He 
accordingly  sent  one  Ouvrard  to  Amsterdam  to  urge  Labou- 
ch£re  to  reopen  negotiations  with  the  British  Cabinet  on 
conditions  much  more  favourable  to  England  than  the 
Emperor  had  made.  Labouchere  naturally  thought  that 
Fouch6  once  more  represented  Napoleon,  and  recommenced 
negotiations  on  a  basis  much  more  satisfactory  to  English 
policy.  The  basis  was  different  indeed.  According  to 
Ouvrard,  the  Emperor  would  modify  his  views  on  Sicily, 
Spain,  the  Spanish  colonies,  Portugal,  and  Holland;  he  was 
earnestly  desirous  of  peace,  and  he  shared  the  hostility  of  the 
British  Cabinet  to  the  Americans.  In  order  to  give  Labou- 
rite more  credit  with  Wellesley,  Fouch6  offered  to  give  up 
to  him  a  mysterious  personage  called  Baron  Kolli,  an  English 
police  agent,  who  had  been  visiting  Valencay  to  arrange  the 
escape  of  Ferdinand.  Kolli  had  been  arrested  by  the  French 
troops  who  had  charge  of  the  imprisoned  King.  The  arrest 
had  been  considered  an  important  event  by  the  Cabinet  of 
St.  Cloud.  To  all  this  Ouvrard  added  a  good  deal  of  his 
own,  and  Labouchere  could  not  do  otherwise  than  believe 
what  he  was  told.  Accordingly  he  reopened  negotiations 
by  letter  with  Wellesley.1 

In  the  following  month,  Napoleon,  who  was  making  one  of 
his  tours  of  personal  inspection  in  the  Netherlands,  discussed 
the  Labouchere  negotiations  with  his  brother  Louis  at 
Antwerp.  By  a  curious  chance  he  had  caught  sight  on  his 
journey  of  Ouvrard,  who  was  on  his  way  from  Amsterdam 
to  Paris.  The  Emperor's  promptness  of  mind  had  at  once 
suggested  to  him  that  Ouvrard,  who  enjoyed  the  favour  of 
Fouch6  and  had  business  relations  with  Labouchere,  was 
probably  mixing  himself  up  in  what  did  not  concern  him, 

1  Thiers,  Histoire  du  Consulat  et  de  I' Empire;  Louis  Madelin,  Fouche.     See 
also  Times,  March  16,  1811,  for  the  English  account. 


THE  LABOUCHERE  FAMILY  u 

perhaps  giving  advice  which  was  not  wanted,  or  trying  to 
float  some  speculation  on  the  probabilities  of  peace.  With 
the  presentiment  of  his  genius  he  at  once  forbade  Labouchere 
to  have  any  relations  with  Ouvrard  and  ordered  him  to  send 
immediately  all  the  correspondence  that  had  been  exchanged 
between  Amsterdam  and  London  to  the  King.  Labouchere 
at  once  communicated  all  his  own  letters  and  those  he  had 
received  from  London. 

The  blow  fell  on  June  2  at  St.  Cloud,  where  the  Emperor, 
the  day  after  his  return  from  Holland,  convoked  a  Council 
of  Ministers  to  meet  him.  Fouche,  in  charge  of  the  most 
important  portfolio  of  the  imperial  Cabinet,  was  naturally 
present.  Napoleon  turned  and  rent  him.  What  was 
Ouvrard  doing  in  Holland?  Had  Fouch6  sent  him  there? 
Was  he  or  was  he  not  an  accomplice  of  this  preposterous 
intrigue?  Fouch6,  surprised  and  upset  by  this  sudden  and 
unexpected  attack,  could  find  nothing  better  to  say  than 
that  Ouvrard  was  a  busybody  who  was  always  mixing  him- 
self up  in  other  people's  business  and  that  it  was  wiser  to 
pay  no  attention  to  anything  he  might  say.  The  astute 
personage  must  indeed  have  been  upset  to  attempt  to  "pay" 
Napoleon  with  such  words.  Ouvrard  and  his  papers  were 
at  once  seized,  the  mission  being  entrusted  not  to  Fouch6, 
who  as  Minister  of  the  Police  would  naturally  have  received 
such  an  order,  but  to  Sazary,  an  aide-de-camp  whom  the 
Emperor  had  made  Due  de  Rovigo  and  in  whom  he  had 
complete  confidence.  Ouvrard's  papers  revealed  at  once 
the  extent  to  which  the  intrigue  had  been  pushed  and  of 
Fouch6's  complicity.  The  next  day  Fouch6  was  dismissed 
from  the  Ministry  of  Police,  where  he  was  succeeded  by 
Rovigo,  and  appointed  Governor  of  Rome.  When  Napoleon 
had  anything  to  do  he  did  it  quickly. 

He  did  not  rest  there,  however.  He  was  determined  to 
get  to  the  fin  fond  of  these  singular  negotiations.  Ouvrard, 
kept  in  prison,  was  constantly  examined,  and  Labouchere 
was  summoned  to  Paris  and  ordered  to  bring  all  the  papers 


12  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

still  in  his  hands.  It  appeared,  from  a  comparison  of  these 
with  those  already  seized,  that  Labouchere  had  acted  in 
perfectly  good  faith,  and  the  whole  responsibility  rested 
with  Fouche  and  Ouvrard.  Fouche's  disgrace  was  complete. 
As  soon  as  the  Emperor  discovered  the  episode  of  the  Fagan 
mission  he  turned  once  more  on  the  luckless  minster  and 
demanded  all  the  papers  relative  to  that  affair.  Fouch6 
replied  that  they  were  of  no  importance  and  that  he  had 
burned  them.  Napoleon,  on  hearing  this,  gave  way  to  one 
of  his  appalling  exhibitions  of  rage,  took  away  from  Fouch6 
the  governorship  of  Rome,  and  exiled  him  to  Aix  in  Provence. 
So  ended  this  curious  affair  in  which  Pierre-C6sar  Labouchere 
had  served  his  country  faithfully  and  intelligently  to  the 
extent  which  circumstances  permitted.  Some  years  later 
he  was  to  serve  his  country  perhaps  more  signally,  and 
certainly  more  effectively. 

When  in  1817  France  was  beginning  the  task  of  recon- 
struction, the  principal  difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  ministers 
of  Louis  XVIII.  was  the  very  serious  financial  situation. 
By  the  treaty  of  November  20  of  the  preceding  year,  the 
country  was  pledged  to  pay  to  foreigners  no  less  than  seven 
hundred  million  francs  in  money  in  the  course  of  five  years, 
with  an  additional  sum  of  a  hundred  and  thirty  million  for 
the  pay  of  the  150,000  foreign  troops  which  occupied  the 
country.  There  were  also  numerous  debts,  both  at  home 
and  abroad,  the  payment  of  which  had  been  guaranteed  by 
the  treaties  of  1814  and  1815.  The  ordinary  revenue  was 
useless  to  meet  such  heavy  charges,  and  extraordinary 
taxation,  in  the  state  of  the  country,  would  have  spelt  ruin. 
It  was  necessary  to  have  recourse  to  credit.  But  how  to 
obtain  a  loan?  France  was  not  in  a  state  which  could 
inspire  financiers  with  much  confidence.  In  these  cir- 
cumstances Messrs.  Labouchere  and  Baring  once  more 
placed  themselves  at  the  service  of  the  French  Government. 
They  purchased  nearly  twenty-seven  million  francs'  worth 
of  government  five  per  cent,  rente,  and  thus  restored  French 


THE  LABOUCHERE  FAMILY  13 

credit.  Their  action  was,  no  doubt,  not  purely  disinterested, 
as  they  bought  the  rente  at  an  average  price  of  56.50  and 
obtained  an  interest  of  nine  per  cent,  on  their  money.  Still, 
the  difficulty  of  the  moment  was  to  find  anybody  to  do  it 
at  any  price.1  A  private  journal  of  the  period,  kept  by  the 
husband  of  a  niece  of  Sir  Francis  Baring,  consequently  a 
first  cousin  by  marriage  of  Mme.  Pierre-C6sar  Labouchere, 
gives  the  following  account  of  the  transaction:2  "The 
'Alliance  Loan'  of  the  Barings  at  Paris  in  1816  probably 
doubled  his  (Pierre-Cesar's)  fortune,  and  he  soon  after 
quitted  business,  and  settled  altogether  in  England,  living 
at  Hylands,  a  property  he  bought  in  Essex,  and  in  Hamilton 
Place,  where  his  home  was  frequented  by  many  distinguished 
people  and  diplomatists." 

Two  sons  were  born  to  Pierre-C6sar  and  Dorothy  Labou- 
chere. The  elder,  Henry,  was  born  in  1798,  and  made  for 
himself  a  social  and  political  career  of  decided  distinction, 
as  a  Whig  of  the  old  school,  a  certain  primness  and  conven- 
tionality of  character  enabling  him  to  perform  the  part 
successfully  in  private  as  in  public  life.  He  took  a  first- 
class  in  classics  at  Oxford,  and  in  1832  found  himself  a  Lord 
of  the  Admiralty.  He  became  subsequently  Vice-President 
of  the  Board  of  Trade,  Under-Secretary  to  the  Colonies, 
President  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  Chief  Secretary  of  Ireland, 
Secretary  of  State  for  the  Colonies,  and  was  raised  to  the 
peerage  in  1859,  when  he  assumed  the  title  of  Faron  Taunton, 
choosing  the  name  of  the  borough  he  had  represented  in 
Parliament  for  thirty  years.  It  was  at  Taunton  in  1835 
that  he  opposed  and  defeated  Dizzy  by  a  majority  of  a 
hundred  and  seventy,  when,  on  his  appointment  as  Master 
of  the  Mint  under  Lord  Melbourne,  he  offered  himself  to 
his  constituents  for  re-election.  His  primness  and  conven- 

1  Histoirc  de  Mon  Temps:  Mtmoircs  du  Chancclier  Pasquitr,  publiees  par  le 
Due  d'Audriffet-Pasquier,  1789-1830. 

*  The  journal  was  written  by  Mr.  T.  L.  Mallet,  who  married  Lucy,  daughter 
of  Charles  Baring.  I  am  indebted  for  the  extract  to  Lord  Northbrook. 


14  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

tionality  found  on  this  occasion  an  admirable  foil  in  the 
manner  and  appearance  of  his  opponent,  who  was  "very 
showily  attired  in  a  bottle-green  frock  coat,  a  waistcoat  of 
the  most  extravagant  pattern,  the  front  of  which  was  almost 
covered  with  glittering  chains,  and  in  fancy  pattern  pan- 
taloons." The  judicious  electors  of  Taunton  preferred 
Mr.  Labouchere's  more  solid  qualities. 

Lord  Taunton  died  very  suddenly  on  July  13,  1869.  He 
was  twice  married,  first  to  Frances,  daughter  of  Sir  Thomas 
Baring, T  and  secondly  to  Lady  Mary  Howard,  a  daughter  of 
Lord  Carlisle.  He  left  no  sons.  Consequently  the  bulk 
of  his  fortune  descended  to  his  brother  John  Labouchere's 
eldest  son  Henry,  the  future  member  for  Northampton  and 
editor  of  Truth. 

The  younger  Henry  Labouchere's  earliest  recollections 
carried  him  back  to  his  childish  visits  to  his  grandfather  in 
Hamilton  Place,  where  Prince  Talleyrand,  then  Ambassador 
to  the  Court  of  St.  James  (1830-34),  was  a  frequent  visitor. 
"I  have  always  taken  a  special  interest  in  Talleyrand,"  he 
wrote  when  he  was  sixty,  "because  he  gave  me  when  a  child 
a  very  gorgeous  box  of  dominoes."2 

The  elder  Henry  Labouchere  does  not  seem  at  first  sight 
to  have  shared  any  traits  with  his  nephew  and  namesake. 
The  only  point  on  which  they  may  be  said  to  have  agreed 
was  their  love  for  America.  Lord  Taunton  as  a  young  man 
travelled  much  in  the  United  States  with  Lord  Derby,  and 
he  had  important  business  interests  there  as  well  as  in  South 
America,  arising  out  of  the  commercial  enterprises  of  the 

'Yet  another  link  between  the  Laboucheres  and  the  Barings  was  forged 
by  the  marriage,  in  1837,  of  Lady  Taunton's  sister,  Emily  Baring,  to  Mrs.  John 
Labouchere's  brother,  the  Rev.  William  Maxwell  Du  Pre.  His  sister,  Caroline 
Du  Pre,  became  the  wife  of  the  Rev.  Spenser  Thornton,  who  was  a  grandson 
of  Godfrey  Thornton  by  Jane  his  wife,  a  daughter  of  an  influential  director 
of  the  French  hospital,  Stephen  Peter  Godin,  whose  family  note-book  was 
published  in  the  January  number  of  the  Genealogist  (The  Labouchere  Pedigree, 
by  Henry  Wagner,  F.S.A.,  1913). 

3  Truth,  March  19,  1891. 


THE  LABOUCHERE  FAMILY  15 

house  of  Hope.  He  acquired  in  the  course  of  his  travels  a 
strong  liking  for  American  institutions  and  a  genuine  affec- 
tion for  the  American  people,  a  feeling  which,  as  we  shall  see, 
was  shared  by  his  nephew. 

Mr.  John  Labouchere  predeceased  Lord  Taunton  by  six 
years,  and  it  was  often  presumed  by  persons  who  knew  the 
family  but  slightly  that  the  younger  Henry  Labouchere  was 
the  son  of  Lord  Taunton,  which  mistake  gave  the  young  wit 
the  opportunity  of  making  one  of  his  best-known  repartees. 
On  one  occasion  a  gentleman,  to  whom  Henry  was  introduced 
for  the  first  time,  opened  the  conversation  by  remarking: 
"I  have  just  heard  your  father  make  an  admirable  speech 
in  the  House  of  Lords."  "The  House  of  Lords!"  replied 
Mr.  Labouchere,  assuming  an  air  of  intense  interest,  "well, 
I  always  have  wondered  where  my  father  went  to  when  he 
died." 


CHAPTER  II 
CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH 

(1831-1853) 

JOHN  PETER  LABOUCHERE,1  the  younger  son  of 
Pierre-C6sar  Labouchere,  was  a  partner  in  the  firm 
of  Hope  at  Amsterdam,  and,  later,  a  partner  in  the  bank  of 
Williams,  Deacon,  Thornton,  and  Labouchere.  He  married 
Mary  Louisa  Du  Pre,2  second  daughter  of  Mr.  James  Du 
Pre  of  Wilton  Park  in  Buckinghamshire,  and  granddaughter 
of  Sir  William  Maxwell  of  Monteith,  by  whom  he  had  a 
family  of  three  sons  and  six  daughters,  of  whom  one  son  and 
four  daughters  are  still  living.  He  was  the  owner  of  Broome 
Hall  in  Surrey,  and  his  town  house  was  at  16  Portland  Place. 
He  was  an  extremely  religious  man  and  well  known  for  his 
charitable  and  philanthropic  labours.  At  one  period  his 
elder  brother,  Lord  Taunton,  then  Mr.  Henry  Labouchere, 
also  had  a  house  in  Portland  Place,  and  he  used  to  relate  that 
he  was  constantly  pestered  by  persons  confusing  him  with 
his  brother  the  banker,  who  called  to  ask  for  his  help  and 
patronage  with  regard  to  various  evangelical  enterprises. 
It  was  his  habit  to  reply  to  them :  "You  have  made  a  mistake, 
sir;  the  good  Mr.  Labouchere  lives  at  No.  16." 

Henry  Du  Pre,  the  eldest  son  of  John  Labouchere,  was 
born  at   16  Portland   Place  on  November  9,    1831.     His 

1  Born  Aug.  14,  1799;  died  Jan.  29,  1863.  3  Died  April  29,  1874. 

16 


1831-1853]        CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  17 

education,  had  he  been  a  docile  pupil,  would,  according  to 
his  father's  wishes,  have  been  that  of  a  conventional  English 
boy  with  some  reasonable  expectations  of  a  fine  career  in 
the  financial  or  the  diplomatic  world,  into  either  of  which  he 
had  an  easy  entrte  through  the  influence  of  the  Labouchere 
family.  But  he  displayed,  at  the  very  beginning  of  his 
career,  a  curious  and  original  character,  which  did  not  seem 
to  follow  easily  any  of  the  known  paths  of  learning  marked 
out  for  the  youth  of  his  period.  The  earliest  repartee  re- 
corded of  him  was  made  to  the  headmaster  of  the  private 
school  to  which  he  was  sent  at  the  age  of  six.  Before  break- 
fast, the  morning  after  his  arrival,  the  new  boys  were  placed 
in  a  row,  and  asked  whether  they  had  all  washed  their  teeth. 
One  by  one  they  answered  in  the  affirmative,  until  came  the 
turn  of  Henry.  "No,"  he  answered  firmly.  "And  pray 
why  not?"  wound  up  the  master  indignantly,  after  a  long 
lecture  on  the  enormity  of  the  crime  of  neglecting  the  clean- 
liness of  the  teeth.  "Because  I  haven't  got  any,"  smiled 
Henry  suddenly.  He  was  just  at  the  stage  of  changing  his 
baby  teeth,  and  his  toothless  gums  were  displayed  for  the 
full  benefit  of  the  discomfited  moralist. l  Nearly  fifty  years 
later  Labouchere  published  the  following  account  of  his 
school-days : 

"When  I  was  a  boy  I  was  sent  to  a  school  which  was  kept 
by  one  of  the  most  ill-conditioned  ruffians  that  ever  wielded 
a  cane.  He  used  to  suffer  from  lumbago  (this  was  my  only 
consolation),  and  would  crawl  on  his  hands  and  knees  into 
the  schoolroom ;  then  he  would  rear  up  and  commence  caning 
a  few  boys,  merely,  I  truly  believe,  from  a  notion  that  the 
exercise  would  be  beneficial  to  his  muscles.  The  man  was 
ignorant,  brutal,  mean,  and  cruel,  and  yet  his  school  some- 
how had  a  reputation  as  an  excellent  one — mainly,  I  suspect, 
because  he  had  the  effrontery  to  charge  a  high  price  for  the 
privilege  of  being  at  it."1 

:  I  am  indebted  to  Mrs.  Hillycr,  Mr.  Labouchere's  eldest  sister,  for  the 
above  anecdote.  •  Truth,  May  28,  1885. 


18  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1831- 

He  went  to  Eton  in  the  September  of  1844,  and  was 
entered  at  the  house  of  Edward  Balston,  who  afterwards 
became  headmaster.  Dr.  Hawtrey,  whose  classical  teaching 
has  been  described  as  "more  picturesque  than  useful,"  was 
headmaster  during  the  three  years  and  a  half  that  Henry 
Labouchere  was  at  the  school.  The  boy  seems  to  have  been 
a  fairly  idle  scholar,  and  nothing  remarkable  in  the  way  of  a 
sportsman.  He  was  exceedingly  small  for  his  age  and,  in 
consequence,  a  light  weight,  so  that  he  was  much  in  request 
on  summer  afternoons  as  a  "cox."  Among  his  contempo- 
raries at  Eton  were  the  late  Lord  Avebury,  the  late  Sir 
George  Tryon,  Lord  Roberts,  the  late  Sir  Arthur  Blackwood, 
Sir  Algernon  West,  and  Lord  Welby.  Lord  Welby  recollects 
that  he  had,  even  in  his  Eton  days,  the  dry,  cynical  manner 
and  original  mode  of  verbal  expression  which,  later  on, 
marked  him  out  from  his  fellows. 

Labouchere  fell  under  a  suspicion  of  bullying  whilst  at 
Balston's,  and  the  consequences  he  was  forced  to  undergo  are 
interesting  as  illustrative  of  the  Eton  justice  of  the  forties. 
He  was  in  the  fifth  form,  and  the  elder  boys  of  his  house 
summoned  the  captain  of  the  lower  boys,  one  Barton,  who 
was  a  good  deal  bigger  than  Labouchere,  to  fight  him  in  the 
house.  Barton  had  no  quarrel  on  his  own  account  with 
Labouchere — it  was  a  case  of  representative  justice.  The 
fight  was  arranged  to  take  place  in  one  of  the  rooms  after 
tea,  it  being  the  uncomfortable  practice  in  those  days  always 
to  fight  after  a  meal.  Labouchere  and  Barton  punched 
away  at  each  other  for  an  hour  or  so,  until  the  big  boys  went 
down  to  supper,  when  they  were  allowed  to  rest.  After  the 
elders  had  supped,  the  fight  was  renewed  until  Labouchere 
succumbed.  However,  it  was  generally  allowed  that  he  had 
made  a  good  show  before  a  bigger  man  than  himself.  The 
next  day  the  eyes  of  the  combatants  were  bunged  up,  their 
noses  swollen  to  bottle  size,  and  their  complexions  coloured 
bright  blue  and  green  with  bruises.  They  could  not  go  into 
school.  Balston  was  obliged  to  take  notice  of  what  had  hap- 


i853l  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  19 

pened,  which  he  did  with  well-simulated  indignation,  and, 
when  they  were  able  to  return  to  school,  reported  them  to 
Hawtrey,  who  "swished"  them  both.1 

Another  contemporary  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  at  Eton,  the 
late  Frederick  Morton  Eden,  related  a  story  about  him  at  a 
dinner  given  to  him  some  years  ago,  as  the  senior  "Old 
Etonian,"  in  the  School  Hall  of  the  College.  Whilst  the  old 
chapel  was  being  restored,  a  temporary  chapel  of  wood  and 
iron  was  run  up.  The  corrugated  iron  roof  made  the  heat 
intolerable  during  the  summer  months,  so  Labouchere  hit 
upon  a  plan  to  put  a  stop  to  the  nuisance  of  "chapel  in  the 
shanty."  One  boy  was  to  pretend  to  faint  and  four  others 
were  to  carry  him  out.  A  fifth  was  to  follow  bearing  the 
hats  of  the  performers.  The  plan  worked  admirably.  The 
service  was  brought  to  a  temporary  stop  and  the  boys,  as 
soon  as  they  were  outside,  scampered  merrily  off  and  pro- 
cured some  agreeable  refreshment.  The  repetition  of  this 
comedy,  of  course,  aroused  the  suspicion  of  the  masters,  but 
nevertheless,  like  many  of  Labouchere's  intrigues  in  later 
life,  it  produced  eventually  the  desired  effect.  There  was 
no  more  chapel  during  the  hot  weather  until  the  restoration 
of  the  old  chapel  was  complete. 

A  reminiscence  of  his  Eton  days  that  Mr.  Labouchere 
was  fond  of  relating  has  already  found  its  way  into  print, 
but  will  bear  repetition,  as  all  may  not  have  read  it.  One 
day,  his  store  of  pocket-money  being  at  high- water  mark,  he 
conceived  the  notion  of  doing  the  man  about  town  for  an 
hour  or  two;  so,  having  dressed  himself  with  scrupulous  care, 
he  sallied  forth,  and,  entering  the  best  hotel  in  the  place, 
engaged  a  private  room,  and  in  a  lordly  manner  ordered  a 
bowl  of  punch.  The  waiter  stared  but  brought  the  liquor, 
and  went  away.  The  boy,  having  tasted  it,  found  it  horri- 
ble. He  promptly  poured  it  into  the  lower  compartment 

1 1  am  indebted  to  Lord  Welby  for  the  above  anecdote.  He  heard  it  from 
the  late  Lord  Bristol,  who  was  Labouchere's  fag  at  Eton,  and  also  from  the 
late  Mr.  Anthony  Hammond. 


20  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1831- 

of  an  antique  oak  sideboard.  He  waited  a  little  to  see 
whether  it  would  run  out  on  to  the  carpet.  Luckily  the 
drawer  was  watertight,  and  Labouchere  rang  the  bell  again 
and  proudly  ordered  from  the  amazed  waiter  a  second  bowl 
of  punch.  He  poured  this  also  into  the  oak  sideboard,  and 
in  a  few  minutes  rang  for  the  bill,  tipped  the  waiter  majestic- 
ally, and  swaggered  out  of  the  hotel,  quite  satisfied  that  he 
had  won  the  admiration  and  respect  of  the  whole  staff. 

After  the  Christmas  half  of  1847,  Labouchere  left  Eton. 
He  was  then  in  his  seventeenth  year,  and,  before  going  to 
the  university,  it  was  thought  advisable  to  place  him  for  a 
year  or  two  with  a  private  tutor. 

It  is  interesting,  before  we  leave  Labouchere's  Etonian 
career,  to  record  his  views  on  fagging,  that  venerable  insti- 
tution, which  is  generally  considered  by  Englishmen  to  have 
contributed  so  largely  towards  their  superiority  to  the  rest 
of  mankind.  ' '  When  I  was  at  Eton, ' '  he  wrote, ' '  fags  thought 
that  all  was  fair  in  regard  to  their  masters.  I  had  a  master 
who  used  to  send  me  every  morning  to  a  farmhouse  to  get 
him  cream  for  his  breakfast.  On  my  return  I  invariably 
added  a  trifle  of  my  milk  to  the  cream  and  thickened  my 
milk  with  an  infusion  of  my  master's  cream.  Thus,  by  the 
light  of  that  revenge,  which  Lord  Bacon  calls  a  'rude  sense 
of  justice/  I  anticipated  the  watering  process  which  has 
been  practised  by  so  many  public  companies.  Sometimes 
he  would  have  jugged  hare.  These  occasions  were  my  grand 
opportunity,  and,  unknown  to  him,  I  used  to  pour  out  into 
my  own  slop  basin  a  portion  of  the  savoury  mess,  and  conceal 
the  deficit  by  an  addition  of  pure  water.  Fagging  in  fact, 
is  productive  of  more  evil  to  the  fag  than  the  fagger.  The 
former  learns  all  the  tricks  and  dodges  of  the  slave."1 

Labouchere's  matured  judgment  of  Dr.  Hawtrey  was 
expressed  as  follows: 

Dr.  Hawtrey  was  the  headmaster  when  I  was  at  Eton.    He  was 
1  Truth,  Aug.  8,  1877. 


i853l  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  21 

an  amiable  and  kindly  man  and  a  fine  gentleman.  He  probably 
flogged  about  twenty  boys  every  day,  on  an  average.  He  did 
it  with  exquisite  politeness,  and,  except  on  rare  occasions,  the 
whole  thing  was  a  farce.  Four  cuts  were  the  ordinary  applica- 
tion, and  ten  cuts  were  never  exceeded.  The  proceedings  took 
place  in  public,  and  any  boy  who  had  a  taste  for  the  thing  might 
be  a  spectator.  If  the  victim  flinched  there  was  a  howl  of  exe- 
cration. Far  from  objecting  to  this,  the  doctor  approved  of  it. 
I  remember  once  that  a  boy  fell  on  his  knees,  and  implored  him 
to  spare  him.  "I  shall  not  condescend  to  flog  you,  but  I  leave 
you  to  your  young  friends,"  said  the  doctor.  I  happened  to  be 
one  of  the  young  friends,  and  I  remember  aiding  in  kicking  the 
boy  round  the  quadrangle  for  about  half  an  hour.1 

The  reflections  of  boys  on  the  education  to  which  they 
have  been  subjected  are  remarkably  interesting,  because 
they  are  so  exceedingly  rare.  We  have  Rousseau's  criticism 
of  his  upbringing,  but  it  was  penned  when  youth  was  behind, 
and  it  is  tinged  with  an  affectation  of  intellectual  detach- 
ment and  middle-aged  self-consciousness  which  robs  it  of 
the  spontaneity  which  would  be  its  only  recommendation. 
St.  Augustine,  when  he  wrote  his  confessions,  knew  far  too 
much  to  be  able  to  write  with  simple  sincerity  of  his  foolish 
youth.  Labouchere's  early  note-books,  unlike  these  master- 
pieces, possess  the  uncommon  value  of  being  youth's  judg- 
ments upon  youth,  written  with  all  the  hardy  ingenuousness 
of  a  clever  boy,  who  was,  besides  being  clever,  extremely 
young  for  his  age.  *  About  the  period  of  his  life  which  has 
been  described  Labouchere  wrote,  at  the  age  of  twenty-one: 
"I  will  give  ...  an  outline  of  my  life,  and  the  different 
courses  that  led  to  my  discovery  of  early  wisdom.  I  went 
through  the  usual  numbers  of  schools,  by  which  I  learnt  that 
an  English  education,  for  the  time  and  money  that  it  con- 
sumes, is  the  worst  that  the  world  has  yet  produced.  One 

*  Truth,  Jan.  31,  1889. 

•The  note-books  from  which   the  quotations  in  this  chapter  have  been 
taken  are  in  the  possession  of  the  Rev.  John  Labouchere  of  Sculthorpe  Rectory, 


22  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1831- 

clergyman  alone  of  all  my  masters  knew  how  to  teach.  His 
conduct  was  perfectly  arbitrary,  and  he  gave  no  reason  for 
it — while,  in  the  several  branches  of  learning,  his  pupils 
either  made  rapid  progress  or  left  his  house.  My  acquaint- 
ance with  him  was  of  short  duration.  He  insisted  on  my 
teaching  in  an  infant  school  on  Sunday,  or  leaving  his  house — 
and  I  foolishly  preferred  the  latter.  I  was  then  too  young  to 
go  to  college,  so  I  was  transferred  to  a  clergyman  in  Norfolk, 
the  very  antipodes  of  my  former  master.  Here  I  amused 
myself,  and  was  flattered  for  a  year  or  two,  and  then  went  to 
the  university. " 

In  February,  1850,  he  went  up  to  Trinity  College,  Cam- 
bridge. His  tutor  was  Mr.  Cooper.  In  his  note-book 
describing  the  university  period  of  his  career  Labouchere 
wrote:  "My  father  sent  me  to  college,  where,  instead  of 
improving  my  mind  (for  manners,  I  own,  must  be  bad  to  be 
improved  by  such  a  place),  I  diligently  attended  the  race- 
course at  Newmarket.  I  had  a  general  idea  that  here  (at 
the  university)  I  should  astonish  the  world  by  my  talents — 
I  attended  no  lectures,  as  I  considered  myself  too  clever  to 
undergo  the  drudgery.  I  considered  myself — on  what 
grounds  God  knows — an  orator  and  a  poet.  I  went  to  the 
Debating  Society  and  commenced  a  speech  in  favour  of  the 
regicides,  but,  to  my  astonishment,  entirely  broke  down. 
To  my  equal  astonishment,  upon  writing  the  first  line  of  a 
prize  poem,  I  found  it  impossible  to  find  a  second.  To 
become  known  in  the  university  was  my  ambition — my  short 
cuts  to  fame  had  failed — it  never  entered  my  head  to  apply 
myself  really  to  study,  so,  in  default  of  a  better  method,  I 
resolved  to  distinguish  myself  by  my  bets  on  horse-races.  I 
diligently  attended  every  meeting  at  Newmarket  and  spent  the 
evenings  in  a  tavern,  where  the  sporting  students  and  sporting 
tradesmen  assembled  to  gamble.  At  the  end  of  two  years  I 
had  lost  about  £6000,  and  I  owed  to  most  of  my  sporting 
friends.  .  .  .  Upon  a  dispute  with  the  College  authorities  my 
degree  was  deferred  for  two  years,  and  I  left  the  University." 


i853]  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  23 

So  many  incorrect  versions  of  Labouchere's  dispute  with 
the  university  have  been  given  in  various  newspaper  bio- 
graphical notices  at  different  times  that  a  short  account  of 
what  actually  did  happen  will  not  be  out  of  place  here. 

A  court  was  held  on  April  2,  1852,  at  King's  Lodge,  to 
hear  a  complaint  brought  by  the  proproctor,  Mr.  Barnard 
Smith,  against  Henry  Labouchere  for  having  sent  to  various 
university  officers  a  printed  paper,  signed  by  himself,  im- 
puting unfair  conduct  to  Mr.  Barnard  Smith  towards  himself 
whilst  in  the  Senate  House  during  an  examination. 

What  happened  at  the  Senate  House  is  best  told  in 
Labouchere's  own  words.  I  quote  the  printed  letter  which 
he  sent  to  the  university  officers,  and  which  was  the  cause 
of  his  leaving  Cambridge  before  he  took  his  degree. 

The  undersigned  went  into  the  Senate  House  for  the  previous 
Examination  on  Monday  last,  and  had  not  been  there  long  before 
he  was  painfully  surprised  by  the  suspicions  of  one  of  the  pro- 
proctors,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Barnard  Smith  of  St.  Peter's  College. 
This  gentleman,  from  the  beginning  of  the  Examination,  con- 
tinued to  watch  the  undersigned  in  so  marked  a  manner  as  not 
only  to  be  noticed  by  himself  but  by  other  members  of  the 
University,  under  examination,  who  sat  near  him.  The  under- 
signed felt  much  distressed  at  this  special  surveillance.  He  had 
done  nothing  to  deserve  suspicion  of  being  likely  to  resort  to  any 
unworthy  practices  in  the  Senate  House,  and  the  knowledge  that 
he  was  thus  subject  to  what  he  felt  to  be  little  short  of  a  direct 
personal  insult  hindered  his  giving  undivided  attention  to  the 
examination  questions  which  he  had  to  answer. 

Notwithstanding  this  discouragement,  the  undersigned  sent 
in  his  answers,  which  he  has  since  been  assured  by  one  of  the 
Examiners  were  satisfactory.  .  .  . 

On  the  day  following  (Tuesday) ,  having  nearly  answered  all 
the  questions,  the  undersigned  was  stopped  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  B. 
S.  and  charged  with  raal- practices  in  the  Examination,  of  which 
he  was  not  guilty. 

HENRY  LABOUCHERE. 

After   a  short   inquiry,    during   which   it   was   ascertained 


24  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1831- 

that  Labouchere  had  been  guilty  of  writing  the  above  letter, 
the  court  delivered  the  following  sentence:  "The  court  being 
of  opinion  that  the  charge  has  been  fully  proved,  and  that 
the  conduct  of  Mr.  Labouchere  has  been  highly  reprehensible 
and  injurious  to  the  character  and  discipline  of  the  Univer- 
sity, sentences  Henry  Labouchere  to  be  admonished  and 
suspended  from  his  degree  for  two  years."  In  the  course 
of  the  inquiry,  Labouchere  defended  himself  with  great 
ability,  though  unsuccessfully. 

I  give  his  defence  verbatim,  as  the  detail  with  which  he 
gave  it  is  the  best  possible  account  of  the  circumstances 
which  led  up  to  his  insubordinate  act : 

The  whole  business  seems  so  indefinite  that  it  is  almost  impos- 
sible to  offer  a  defence.  I  am  convened  before  the  Vice-Chancel- 
lor for  sending  a  printed  notice  to  the  Examiners  and  for  bringing 
a  charge  against  Mr.  Barnard  Smith.  But  what  my  copying  or 
not  copying  in  the  Senate  House  has  to  do  with  it,  it  is  difficult 
to  say.  But,  as  my  copying  has  been  brought  forward  and  is 
supposed  to  bear  on  the  subject,  I  am  happy  to  have  an  oppor- 
tunity of  disproving  it.  Mr.  Fenwick,  on  being  asked,  brought 
forward  3  charges  why  I  was  sent  out  of  the  Senate  House: 
first,  for  having  a  paper  concealed  which  I  refused  to  give  to  the 
Examiners;  secondly,  for  asserting  that  the  paper  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  Examination;  and  thirdly,  for  owning  that  it  had. 
Mr.  Fenwick  (who  it  appears  had  the  direction  of  the  case)  made 
no  further  charge.  Mr.  Barnard  Smith  now  brings  an  entirely 
different  charge,  which  is  that  I  slipped  a  piece  of  paper  into  my 
pocket,  and  that  he  imagines  he  saw  me  do  so.  Why  he  didn't 
stop  me  at  the  time  he  does  not  say.  Now  all  the  Examiners 
who  had  been  examined  here  to-day,  except  Mr.  Latham,  say 
that  from  my  general  conduct  I  was  suspected  of  copying  on 
Monday.  Mr.  Fenwick,  however,  is  more  particular,  and  says 
that  my  position  excited  suspicion.  Mr.  Woollaston  says  that 
I  did  not  appear  to  be  occupied  with  the  Examination.  So  that 
what  my  general  conduct  was  is  explained.  Having  partly 
finished  10  questions  in  the  Scripture  history,  I,  more  as  a  rest 
than  anything  else,  wrote  a  note  to  a  friend  asking  him  how  he 


1853]  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  25 

had  got  on,  and  mentioned  that  I  had  just  given  a  long  answer 
to  the  loth  question:  I  added,  "  I  suppose  the  Shunamite  woman 
was  the  person  whose  son  was  struck  with  the  sun."  While 
reading  this  note  to  myself,  I  saw  Mr.  Barnard  Smith  coming 
towards  me ;  upon  which  I  threw  it  away  as  far  as  possible ;  and 
upon  his  asserting  that  he  had  seen  a  paper  in  my  hands  I  said 
that  he  had,  but  that  I  had  no  crib,  nor  had  I  in  any  way  copied, 
that  it  was  a  note  having  nothing  to  do  with  the  Examination. 
Not  being  in  the  habit  of  having  my  word  questioned  I  saw  no 
reason  for  producing  it.  Mr.  Barnard  Smith,  however,  thought 
differently ;  and,  as  theExaminers  agreed  with  him,  upon  demand- 
ing its  production  I  said  that  I  had  thrown  it  away,  and  it  was 
probably  somewhere  on  the  ground.  Having  looked  close  by 
and  not  perceived  it,  I  told  Mr.  Fenwick  that  I  did  n't  see  it. 
Mr.  Fenwick,  on  this,  ordered  me  to  look  for  it,  in  a  manner  so 
offensive,  that  I  took  no  further  trouble  about  the  matter.  I  then 
told  the  Examiners  that,  if  they  wished  to  know  what  was  in  the 
note,  there  was  a  question  about  the  Shunamite  woman,  and 
told  them  I  had  just  finished  the  answer  to  that  question.  I 
then  gave  up  my  papers  and  left  the  Senate  House.  The  infer- 
ence I  believe  drawn  from  the  last  two  charges  is  that  I  told  a  lie. 
Upon  this  point  any  person  may  form  his  own  opinion.  I 
am  asked  whether  I  had  a  paper.  The  paper  is  by  that  time 
thrown  away.  I  answered  that  I  had.  Had  I  denied  it  there 
would  have  been  no  evidence,  and  the  matter  would  probably 
have  dropped. 

According  to  the  Examiner  I  had  first  said  the  paper  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  Examination,  and  then,  finding  that  the 
paper  is  not  produced,  tell  them  that  the  paper  had  to  do  with 
the  Examination.  I  simply  stated  what  it  contained  and  should 
not  have  told  a  lie  against  myself.  The  fact  was,  not  seeing  the 
paper,  and  considering  that  Mr.  Fenwick  had  ordered  me  to  look 
for  it  in  rather  an  offensive  way,  I  told  them  what  it  contained. 
I  had  finished  the  Examination  question  at  the  time,  and  the 
question  in  the  note  was  not  put  in  with  any  desire  to  know 
whether  it  was  right  or  wrong.  I  simply  put  in  that  I  supposed 
it  was  right  more  for  something  to  say  than  for  anything  else. 
But  I  certainly  did  not  consider  it  had  anything  to  do  with  the 
Examination  in  the  way  which  Mr.  Barnard  Smith  meant. 


26  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1831- 

With  respect  to  Mr.  Barnard  Smith's  impression  that  I  slipped 
a  piece  of  paper  into  my  pocket,  I  wish  that  he  had  said  so  at 
the  time,  that  I  might  have  disproved  it.  I  can  only  say  now 
that  there  is  a  sufficient  internal  evidence  in  my  answers  to  show 
that  I  did  n't  obtain  assistance  from  any  notes,  as  I  had  a  general 
knowledge  of  the  subject,  and  confined  myself  to  general  facts. 
After  having  been  dismissed  from  the  Senate  House,  and  having, 
in  vain,  challenged  an  investigation  before  the  Vice-Chancellor, 
as  I  understood  the  Examiners  openly  asserted  that  I  had  told  a 
lie,  I  sent  a  circular  to  them  denying  the  charge.  I  did  this, 
lest  at  any  time  hereafter,  such  an  action  should  be  brought  to 
my  charge,  and  also  that  it  had  been  unrefuted.  I  have  now 
denied  the  charge,  and  for  their  individual  opinion  I  care  little. 

The  court  asked,  at  this  point,  if  Mr.  Labouchere  de- 
liberately wished  these  words  to  be  recorded:  he  said  "Yes" 
and  then  went  on  with  his  defence : 

But,  as  in  their  office  of  Examiners  they  had  unjustly  asserted 
that  I  told  a  lie,  I  did  my  duty  in  openly  denying  it.  I  mean  to 
say  that  I  sent  this  circular  to  the  Examiners  in  their  public 
capacity  and  not  as  private  individuals.  I  sent  it  to  justify 
myself  from  a  charge  which  I  consider  unjust,  and  upon  which 
I  could  not  obtain  an  investigation. 

The  immediate  reflection  that  presents  itself  to  the  mind 
of  any  one  who  knew  Labouchere  well  and  who  studies  his 
defence  is  that  it  is  curious  that  it  should  have  been  over  a 
Scripture  History  paper  that  he  was  suspected  of  cribbing, 
for,  thanks  to  his  early  evangelical  training  and  his  innate 
love  of  his  Bible,  Labouchere  was  almost  phenomenally 
proficient  in  Scripture  knowledge.  He  quoted  the  Bible, 
and  rarely  incorrectly,  on  every  occasion — in  his  parliament- 
ary speeches,  in  his  journalistic  articles,  and  in  private 
conversation — and  he  could,  invariably,  if  questioned,  give 
chapter  and  verse  for  the  verification  of  his  quotation. 

Two  anecdotes  have  frequently  been  given  in  the  press 
about  Labouchere's  alleged  cribbing  at  Cambridge.  I  never 


CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  27 

heard  him  relate  them  himself,  and  they  are  probably  legends 
of  the  kind  that  are  born  in  the  journalist's  brain  whilst  he 
is  racking  it  for  copy  in  the  shape  of  anecdotic  detail.  The 
first  is  that  his  academic  career  terminated  abruptly  because 
he  had  made  a  bet  with  another  undergraduate  that  he 
would  crib  in  his  Little  Go  examination  without  being  caught, 
and  that  when  caught  he  accused  the  examiner  of  being  in 
collusion  with  the  other  party  to  the  bet.  The  other  is  that 
during  the  examination  he  was  observed  to  be  frequently 
looking  at  something  concealed  beneath  a  sheet  of  blotting- 
paper.  On  being  asked  to  produce  it,  Labouchere  refused. 
But,  when  obliged  to  do  so,  it  was  found  that  the  concealed 
object  was  the  photograph  of  a  popular  variety  artiste,  whose 
bright  eyes,  he  asserted,  stimulated  him  to  persevere  in  his 
academic  efforts. 

There  are,  of  course,  any  number  of  popular  anecdotes  of 
Labouchere's  university  days.  A  good  one  is  the  following. 
On  one  occasion,  having  taken  French  leave  to  London,  he 
was  unexpectedly  confronted  one  morning  in  the  Strand  by 
his  father,  who  looked  extremely  annoyed  to  see  the  youth 
there,  when  he  imagined  him  to  be  occupied  with  his  studies. 
Henry's  wits  as  usual  were  on  the  alert.  He  returned  his 
father's  cold  greeting  with  a  surprised  stare.  "I  beg  your 
pardon,  sir,"  he  said,  "I  think  you  have  made  a  mistake. 
I  have  not  the  honour  of  your  acquaintance."  He  pushed 
by  and  was  lost  in  the  crowd.  Rapidly  consulting  his  watch, 
he  found  he  could,  by  running,  just  catch  a  train  for  Cam- 
bridge. He  did  so,  and  what  he  had  foreseen  happened. 
Mr.  Labouchere,  senior,  after  having  accomplished  the  busi- 
ness he  was  about,  took  the  next  train  for  Cambridge.  On 
reaching  the  university  he  was  ushered  into  his  son's  study, 
where  he  found  him  absorbed  in  work.  He  made  no  refer- 
ence to  his  rencontre  in  the  Strand,  being  persuaded  that  it 
must  have  been  a  hallucination. 

Another  story  relates  how  he  used  to  go  about  in  a  very 
ragged  gown.  One  day  the  Master  of  Trinity,  Whewell, 


28  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1831- 

came  across  him  and  said,  "Is  that  a  proper  academic 
costume,  Mr.  Labouchere?"  "Really,  sir,  I  must  refer  you 
to  my  tailor,"  was  the  reply. 

Labouchere  continues  in  his  note-book  to  describe,  with 
naive  minuteness  of  detail,  his  search  for  wisdom  after  he 
left  the  university.  "With  great  liberality, "  he  wrote,  "my 
father  paid  my  debts,  and  advised  my  return  home.  My 
family  .  .  .  was  religious,  and,  finding  my  father's  house 
dull,  I  had  accustomed  myself  to  live  at  a  tavern  in  Co  vent 
Garden.  .  .  .  After  remaining  there  for  two  or  three  weeks, 
I  used  to  return  home,  and  leave  it  indefinite  from  where  I 
had  come.  Until  my  leaving  College  and  the  payment  of 
my  debts  by  my  father,  I  had  kept  up  an  appearance  of 
respectability  at  home.  Now,  however,  I  threw  off  all 
restraint,  and  openly  lived  at  my  tavern  for  about  two 
months,  during  which  I  lost  several  hundred  pounds  at  hells 
and  casinos. " 

The  tavern  which  Labouchere  frequented  at  this  period 
was  far  from  being  the  haunt  of  vice  which,  with  the  gloomy 
sternness  of  moralising  youth,  he  wished  to  depict  it.  It 
was  a  species  of  night  club,  known  as  Evans',  and  was  the 
resort  of  all  literary  and  artistic  London.  It  constantly 
figures  in  Thackeray's  novels  and  other  books  of  the  period 
as  a  place  of  Bohemian  rendezvous  and  the  scene  of  a  good 
deal  of  rough-and-tumble  jollity.  The  house,  of  which  it 
formed  the  cellar,  had  once  been  the  home  of  Sir  Kenelm 
Digby.  Above  the  tavern,  or  "Cave  of  Harmony"  as 
Thackeray  called  it,  was  the  hotel  in  which  Labouchere  had 
his  rooms.  In  later  years,  that  is  to  say  in  the  later  fifties 
and  early  sixties,  the  popularity  of  this  place  of  conviviality 
increased  so  much  that  it  was  found  necessary  to  pull  down 
the  little  room  where  Labouchere  used  to  listen  every  night 
to  the  singing  of  more  or  less  rowdy  songs,  and  build  on  its 
site  a  vast  concert-room,  with  an  annexe,  consisting  of  a 
comfortable  hall,  hung  with  theatrical  portraits,  where 
conversation  could  be  carried  on.  There  was  a  private 


i853]  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  29 

supper-room  in  the  grill,  and  this  annexe  became  a  popular 
resort  for  men  about  town.  Some  of  the  smartest  talk  in 
London  was  to  be  heard  at  Evans1,  for  it  numbered  among 
its  patrons  such  wits  as  Douglas  Jerrold,  Thackeray,  Lionel 
Lawson,  Edmund  Yates,  Augustus  Sala,  Serjeant  Ballantine, 
John  Leech,  Serjeant  Murphy — and  Henry  Labouchere. 
The  presiding  spirit  of  the  establishment  was  a  great  friend 
of  Labouchere's.  He  acted  as  head  waiter  and  was  known 
as  Paddy  Green.  He  had  commenced  his  career  as  a  chorus- 
singer  at  the  Adelphi  Theatre,  and  had  won  for  himself  in 
all  classes  of  society  an  immense  popularity  on  account  of 
his  courtesy  and  unfailing  good-humour.  The  prosperity  of 
Evans'  only  waned  when  the  modern  music-halls,  where 
women  formed  the  larger  part  of  the  audience,  became  the 
fashion. ' 

From  the  superior  point  of  view  of  the  maturity  of 
twenty-one,  Labouchere  was  inclined  to  survey,  with  an  eye 
of  undue  severity,  the  follies  he  committed  at  the  age  of 
nineteen.  He  wrote:  "Whenever  I  entered  into  conversa- 
tion with  any  person,  I  introduced  the  subject  of  gambling, 
and  boasted  of  sums  I  had  lost,  which  I  appeared  to  consider, 
instead  of  a  disgrace,  a  subject  on  which  I  might  justly 
pride  myself.  During  this  period  I  believe  I  had  a  general 
wish  to  elevate  myself  to  some  higher  position,  as,  while 
passing  my  days  and  nights  in  profligacy,  my  chief  study  was 
Dr.  Johnson's  Life  and  Lord  Chesterfield's  Letters  to  his  Son" 
And  again:  "Inflated  with  conceit  I  imagined  myself  equal 
to  cope  with  all  mankind.  In  society  I  was  awkward,  and 
therefore  sought  the  society  of  my  inferiors,  while  I  en- 
deavoured to  delude  myself  with  the  notion  that  I  was  a 
species  of  socialist  and  that  all  men  were  equal.  Conver- 
sation, properly  so-called,  I  had  none.  I  could  argue  any 
subject,  but  not  converse — my  manners  were  boorish — I  had 
never  learnt  to  dance,  so  I  seldom  entered  a  ball-room,  or  if 

1  Edmund  Yates,  Recollections  and  Experiences;  Serjeant  Ballantine, 
Experiences  of  a  Barrister's  Life. 


30  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1831- 

there,  I  pretended  to  despise  the  amusement,  as  I  never 
owned  myself  incapable  of  anything.  If  I  entered  a  drawing- 
room,  I  either  held  myself  aloof  from  the  company,  or  I 
argued  some  subject  by  the  hour  with  my  neighbour.  In 
fact,  in  manners  I  was  an  outrS  specimen  of  an  uncultivated 
English  young  man — the  most  detestable  yahoo  in  creation." 

He  continues:  "From  my  tavern  I  was  again  rescued  by 
my  father,  who  sent  me  abroad  under  the  guidance  of  a 
species  of  Mentor,  who  was,  unfortunately,  totally  unfitted 
for  his  task.  Three  days  after  leaving  England  we  arrived  at 
Wiesbaden,  where  there  are  public  gaming  tables.  Here  I 
felt  myself  at  home,  and  the  first  day  gained  about  £150.  My 
Mentor,  who  was  going  to  the  hotel,  offered  to  carry  the 
money  I  had  won,  and  give  it  back  to  me  the  next  day. 
The  next  morning,  however,  on  my  asking  for  it,  he  refused 
to  return  it  unless  I  promised  not  to  play  while  at  Wiesbaden. 
After  my  father  had  so  often  paid  large  sums  for  me,  in 
gratitude  I  ought  to  have  yielded.  This,  however,  I  refused 
to  do,  but  remained  two  months  at  Wiesbaden,  while  my 
Mentor  continued  his  travels.  At  last  it  was  agreed  that  I 
should  meet  him  at  Paris,  and  there  receive  my  money, 
where,  I  need  not  add,  in  a  few  days  it  was  spent. " 

Some  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  most  interesting  articles  in 
Truth  in  after  years  were  the  ones  he  was  in  the  habit  of 
writing,  when  he  was  on  his  summer  holiday,  describing  the 
various  resorts  he  visited,  and  he  was  always  eager  to  recall 
reminiscences  of  his  boyhood  when  he  found  himself  at  a 
place  he  had  passed  through  in  his  youth.  He  wrote  from 
Wiesbaden  in  1890: 

German  watering-places  are  dull  places  now  that  the  gam- 
bling at  them  has  been  abolished,  and  even  those  who  did  not  play 
at  their  tables  have  discovered  this.  I  am  at  Wiesbaden.  When 
a  jade  repents  of  her  ways  and  takes  to  propriety,  she  is  little 
given  to  overdo  respectability.  So  it  is  with  this  and  other 
examples  of  roulette  and  trente  et  quarante.  The  respectability 
of  the  Wiesbaden  of  to-day  is  positively  oppressive.  Its  devo- 


i853l  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  31 

tion  weighs  upon  the  spirit.  I  remember  being  here  nearly 
forty  years  ago.  I  was  then  a  lad  travelling  on  the  continent 
with  a  bear-leader  to  enlarge  my  experience.  The  bear-leader 
and  I  never  could  quite  agree  what  spot  would  prove  the  most 
improving.  He  wished  to  study  still  nature,  I  wished  to  study 
human  nature.  So,  like  Abram  and  Lot,  we  generally  separated. 
He  betook  himself  to  the  Carpathian  Mountains,  I  sojourned 
here.  Wiesbaden  was  then  cosmopolitan.  The  tag-rag  and 
bobtail  of  all  nations  resorted  to  it,  and,  if  all  of  them  were  not 
quite  sans  reproche,  they  were  all  pleasant  enough  in  their  way. 
There  was  a  vague  notion  that,  somewhere  or  other,  there  were 
waters,  but,  where  precisely  they  were,  and  what  they  cured, 
very  few  knew.  The  Kursaal  was  the  centre  of  attraction,  with 
its  roulette  and  its  trente  et  guarante. ' 

From  Paris,  Labouchere  and  his  tutor  returned  to  Eng- 
land, and,  after  a  month  passed  at  Broome  Hall  with 
occasional  visits  to  his  beloved  Evans',  it  was  arranged  that 
he  should  make  a  trip  to  South  America,  where  his  family 
had  had  for  many  years  very  important  commercial  interests 
and  could  give  him  some  respectable  introductions.  He 
noted  his  impressions  of  his  journey  and  arrival  in  America 
in  the  most  approved  early  Victorian  guide-book  manner, 
but,  in  spite  of  an  apparent  effort  to  be,  at  the  same  time, 
both  stilted  and  elegant  in  style,  his  natural  originality 
peeps  out  here  and  there: 

"On  the  2nd  of  November,  1852,  in  the  steam  packet 
Orinoco,  I  set  sail,  or  rather  set  steam,  from  England.  For 
the  first  ten  days  I  remained  in  bed  in  all  the  agonies  of 
seasickness.  Some  persons,  particularly  poets,  find  some 
pleasure  in  a  voyage,  but  I  confess  the  nil  nisi  pontus  et  aer 
is  to  me  the  most  distasteful  sight  in  creation,  especially 
when  the  pontus  is  rough.  The  passengers  were  chiefly 
Spaniards  to  Havana  and  Germans  who  were  going  to  'im- 
prove their  prospects' — how  I  have  no  idea,  but,  from  the 
appearance  of  the  gentlemen,  they  might  have  done  so  with- 

,  Sept.  4, 1890. 


32  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1831- 

out  becoming  millionaires.  At  nine  we  breakfasted,  at 
twelve  lunched,  at  four  dined,  and  at  seven  tea  'd.  The  rest 
of  the  day  was  passed  on  deck.  Through  storm  and  sun- 
shine the  majority  of  the  foreigners  played  at  bull,  a  species 
of  marine  quoits.  The  ladies  always  knitted,  and  the 
English  read  Dickens'  Household  Words.  In  the  evening 
there  was  dancing.  There  was  an  unfortunate  devil  of  a 
mulatto  on  board  who  offended  the  prejudices  of  the  planters 
by  dancing  with  the  white  ladies.  'Why,'  they  said,  'that 
fellow  ought  to  be  put  up  to  auction  unless  anybody  owns 
him.'  In  eating  and  these  interesting  diversions  the  day 
passed.  The  only  incident  that  enlivened  the  voyage  was, 
that  one  night  the  Germans  had  an  immense  bowl  of  punch 
brewed  (I  wish  I  had  the  recipe  of  that  said  punch,  for  a 
better  brew  I  never  tasted)  and  sang  sentimental  songs.  One 
German  went  round  and  informed  the  English  they  were 
going  to  drink  to  die  King  of  England,  and,  amid  immense 
applause,  they  bawled  out  'Gott  save  die  Queen.'  As  the 
punch  got  to  their  heads  the  songs  became  more  sentimental. 
A  Bonn  student  seized  the  bowl,  and  wished  to  drink  it  to 
the  Fatherland,  when  another,  who  saw  no  reason  why  the 
Bonn  gentleman  should  consecrate  the  whole  to  his  patriotism, 
knocked  him  down.  This  was  the  signal  for  a  general  row. 
Some  were  sick,  some  sang,  while  a  little  Jew,  who,  before, 
I  had  considered  a  steward,  enlivened  the  scene  by  dancing 
about  in  his  night-shirt.  On  coming  up  the  next  morning  I 
found  the  Bonn  student  offering  generally  to  fight  a  duel  with 
any  person  who  asserted  he  had  misbehaved  himself.  As  no 
one  was  valorous  enough  to  do  so,  the  student  retired  into 
1  bull.'  At  St.  Thomas  we  changed  steamers  and  almost  died 
of  heat.  The  mulatto  turned  out  very  smart,  which  excited 
the  ire  of  one  of  the  planters,  who  said,  '  Look  at  that  fellow 
with  a  new  coat,  he  ought  to  be  diving  about  naked  for  half- 
pence in  the  water.'  Decency,  however,  forbade  the 
mulatto  taking  the  kindly  meant  advice.  Ten  days  after 
leaving  St.  Thomas  we  arrived  at  Vera  Cruz.  I  ought  to 


i853l  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  33 

have  felt  some  sort  of  enthusiasm  on  first  seeing  America, 
but  a  mosquito  had  stung  me  in  the  eye,  so  that  I  saw  it 
under  difficulties;  indeed,  a  person  must  possess  a  large 
amount  of  enthusiasm  to  be  aroused  into  any  outward  dis- 
play by  the  sandbanks  and  plaguish-looking  shore  of  Vera 
Cruz.  I  had  a  letter  to  a  merchant,  who  most  hospitably 
entertained  me  at  his  house,  where  I  spent  two  days  bathing 
my  eye  in  hot  water.  On  the  third  day,  in  company  with 
some  friends,  we  left  for  Mexico  in  the  diligence.  In  a 
European  town  we  should  have  created  some  excitement 
marching  to  the  coach  office,  each  armed  with  guns,  swords, 
and  revolvers  ad  libitum.  Here,  however,  no  one  even 
stopped  to  look  at  our  martial  appearance.  At  the  diligence 
office  we  had  a  preliminary  taste  of  the  pleasure  of  travelling 
in  Mexico — travellers  are  only  allowed  25  Ibs.  of  luggage,  and 
as  every  person's  portmanteau  weighed  twice  as  much,  the 
clerk  refused  to  allow  any  to  go.  While  my  companions  were 
haranguing  inside  I  slipped  my  portmanteau,  which  was  far 
the  largest,  under  the  coachman's  seat,  and  a  dollar  into  his 
hand.  During  the  journey  I  was  looked  upon  as  a  villain 
by  my  fellow-passengers,  because  each  thought  that,  if  I  had 
not  existed,  their  traps  would  have  taken  the  place  of  mine. 
Their  position  was  certainly  uncomfortable — their  sole 
luggage  was  in  their  hands,  consisting  chiefly,  as  it  appeared 
to  me,  of  tooth-brushes  which  they  had  taken  out  of  their 
trunks.  It  was  four  in  the  evening  when  we  started.  For 
several  leagues  the  carriage  was  pulled  along  a  railway  by 
mules.  This  comfortable  method  of  travelling  soon  came  to 
an  end,  and,  with  it,  all  signs  of  a  road;  we  were  jolted  along 
a  miserable  path  full  of  ruts,  in  part  paved,  or  rather  un- 
paved,  by  the  Americans  during  their  invasion,  to  make  the 
road  impassable.  Little  did  they  know  the  Mexicans,  as  this 
highroad  from  the  chief  seaport  to  the  capital  has  never  been 
repaired  to  the  present  time.  Alison  has  given  a  glowing 
description  of  the  beauties  of  the  scenery  between  Vera  Cruz 
and  Mexico;  it  might  have  been  Paradise,  but,  in  that  infernal 


34  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1831- 

diligence,  knocking  my  head  every  minute  against  the  top, 
and  holding  on  by  both  hands  to  the  window,  I  was  in  no 
mood  to  enjoy  the  scenery.  Fresh  from  Europe,  I  certainly 
was  astonished  at  the  luxuriant  tropical  jungle,  filled  with 
parrots  and  humming-birds  instead  of  sparrows.  While  my 
eyes  drank  in  this  new  scene,  my  nose  drank  in  a  succession 
of  pole-cats.  It  is  a  journey  of  three  days  between  Vera 
Cruz  and  Mexico.  The  first  day  and  night  is  passed  in  a 
tropical  heat,  after  which  commences  the  ascent  to  the 
Grand  Plateau  of  Mexico.  A  rose  smells  as  sweet  under 
another  name,  and,  as  it  would  be  difficult  to  a  European  to 
pronounce  the  names,  I  do  not  much  regret  forgetting  where 
we  stopped  the  first  night ;  the  second  was  passed  at  Puebla  di 
los  Angelos,  a  town  remarkable  for  its  superstition  during  the 
rule  of  the  Aztecs,  and  equally  remarkable  at  present  for  its 
intolerance.  When  the  cathedral  was  building,  two  angels 
came  down  every  night  and  doubled  the  work  done  during 
the  daytime  by  the  mortal  masons.  The  cathedral  is  the 
most  beautiful  in  the  country ;  every  other  house  is  a  monas- 
tery and  a  church.  At  four  we  started  again  and  jolted  until 
three.  Next  morning,  even  under  these  difficulties,  I  could 
not  help  admiring  the  scenery.  The  only  three  snowy  peaks 
in  Mexico  were  all  distinctly  visible,  while  the  road  wound 
through  mountains  rising  perpendicularly  from  the  plain. 
One  we  passed  is  called  after  Cortes'  wife,  and  exactly  re- 
sembles in  its  outlines  a  giant  asleep.  At  the  close  of  the 
third  day  we  reached  Mexico. 

"When  the  city  was  in  the  midst  of  a  lake  and  approached 
by  causeways  it  might  have  excited  the  admiration  of  Cortes 
and  his  army.  In  the  midst  of  a  dry  swamp  it  failed  to  excite 
mine.  The  advance  of  Cortes  from  the  shore  to  the  capital 
was  wonderful,  but  I  really  think  it  was  to  be  preferred  to  the 
diligence  and  unpaved  road.  All  sufferings  have  an  end,  and 
mine  ended  in  the  diligence  hotel.  I  had  imagined,  from 
travellers'  accounts,  that  I  should  be  lucky  if  I  got  a  corner  in 
a  barn  with  half  a  dozen  mules,  but  I  found  myself  sleeping 


i853l  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  35 

in  a  comfortable  room  and  dining  at  a  table  d'hote  in  a  most 
distressingly  civilised  manner. " 

Labouchere  does  not  think  it  necessary  to  his  dignified 
narrative  to  mention  the  fact  that  his  tutor  accompanied  him 
on  this  journey,  but,  upon  a  reference  to  his  note-book,  we 
find  that  the  long-suffering  Mentor  formed  one  of  the  party. 
Labouchere  is  no  less  severe  upon  himself  and  his  iniquities  in 
America  than  he  was  in  England.  He  wrote : 

"We  landed  at  Vera  Cruz  and  proceeded  to  Mexico.  In 
two  months  I  lost  all  my  money  and  £250  besides  at  cards. 
To  induce  my  Mentor  to  pay  this  sum  I  retired  to  a  neigh- 
bouring town  and  stated  my  intention  to  remain  there  until 
he  provided  the  money.  Here,  in  the  bena  caliente,  in  a  small 
inn,  with  no  companion  but  the  innkeeper,  I  remained  for  a 
month.  Here  I  reconsidered  my  life  and  determined  to 
commence  afresh.  I  asked  myself  upon  what  ground  I 
rested  my  title  to  differ  from  the  common  race  of  fools. 
Was  I  clever?  A  scholar?  I  had  read  a  little.  On  most 
subjects  I  was  ignorant — in  society  I  could  argue,  but  not 
converse.  With  a  lady,  with  a  duenna,  with  every  person 
in  whose  society  I  found  myself,  I  introduced  my  sole  sub- 
ject— gambling.  I  told  everybody  that  I  had  recently  lost 
£6000,  which  I  imagined  raised  me  in  their  opinion.  I  could 
not  dance,  and  I  shunned  society.  I  was  conceited,  and  I 
was  unwilling  to  confess  my  ignorance  of  anything.  I  was 
an  abominable  and  useless  liar,  as  I  was  fond  of  relating 
adventures  of  myself  that  had  really  never  taken  place.  I 
was  ready  to  make  acquaintance  with  every  person  who 
spoke  to  me.  .  Of  music,  drawing,  and  all  the  lighter  arts  I 
knew  absolutely  nothing.  I  was  one  thing  and  one  alone — a 
gambler — on  that  subject  I  could  be  eloquent ;  but  I  felt  that 
I  could  not  consider  myself  superior  to  the  generality  of  man- 
kind on  this  ground  alone.  In  playing  even  I  failed,  because, 
though  I  theoretically  discovered  systems  by  which  I  was 
likely  to  win,  yet,  in  practice,  I  could  command  myself  so 
little  that  upon  a  slight  loss  I  left  all  to  chance. " 


36  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1831- 

The  last  entry  in  his  note-book  was  made  by  Labouchere 
in  the  seclusion  of  this  little  inn  at  Quotla  di  Amalpas,  and  it 
ends  abruptly.  Perhaps  it  was  interrupted  by  the  arrival  of 
the  Mentor,  after  his  receipt  of  the  letter,  the  draft  of  which 
is  given  further  on. 

"  In  my  inn  at  Quotla  di  Amalpas  I  determined  on  reach- 
ing the  States  to  entirely  give  up  gambling.  A  gambler 
requires  to  possess  the  greatest  command  over  himself,  in 
which  I  entirely  failed.  To  be  very  reserved — a  reserved 
person  is  always  supposed  to  be  wiser  than  his  neighbours. 
To  be  engaged  in  as  many  intrigues  as  is  possible  with  ladies 
— nothing  forms  character  so  much  as  intrigues  of  this 
description — probatum  est.  To  learn  with  a  good  counten- 
ance to  pay  delicate  compliments  and  to.  .  .  . " 

In  the  flap  of  his  note-book  is  the  draft  of  the  letter  to  his 
tutor,  referred  to  above,  which  must  be  quoted,  as  it  is  so 
extremely  characteristic  of  the  man  whose  letters  were  ever, 
to  the  very  end  of  his  life,  the  most  frankly  illuminative  docu- 
ments as  to  the  state  of  mind  through  which  he  might  be 
passing.  Incidentally,  also,  it  cannot  fail  to  suggest  to  the 
reader  a  gleam  of  compassion  for  the  problems  and  trials 
which  must  have  been  the  lot  of  its  recipient.  Here  it  is : 

QUOTLA  DI  AMALPAS. 

DEAR  SIR, — I  have  just  come  back  from  Cuernava,  where  I 
rode  over  the  worst  road  even  in  Mexico.  Pray  do  not  trouble 
yourself  to  exercise  your  forbearance,  or  make  excuses,  as  I  can 
assure  you  they  are  not  wanted.  If  you  find  the  slightest  pleas- 
ure or  amusement  in  writing  to  innkeepers  not  to  give  me  money, 
write  to  every  one  in  the  country,  but  do  not  give  yourself  the 
trouble  to  tell  me  you  have  done  so,  as  it  is  a  matter  of  unimport- 
ance to  me.  My  stopping  in  Mexico  cannot  now  be  helped,  as 
I  certainly  shall  not  leave  before  getting  some  money,  and  I 
must  then  go  to  England  to  pay  it.  I  had  intended  not  to  gamble 
in  America,  because  of  having  to  pay  a  double  interest — but 
man  proposes  and  God  disposes.  As  R says,  I  made  up  a 


1853]  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  37 

story  to  avoid  paying  him.  I  could  not  at  present  leave  my 
gambling  debts  unpaid,  or  he  would  be  believed.  I  shall  borrow 
some  money  here,  and  send  to  England  (not  to  my  father)  for 
some  to  pay  it,  and  then  go  to  England  to  pay  it  when  it  becomes 
due.  It  is  a  pity  having  to  go  back  as  I  should  have  liked  to  see 
a  little  more  of  America,  but  what  is  done  is  done,  and  cannot 
be  helped. — Yours  truly, 

HENRY  Du  PRE  LABOUCHERE. 

P.S. — I  have  been  offered  a  place  as  croupier  at  a  Monte* 
bank,  so  I  shall  not  starve. 


CHAPTER  III 
TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY 

(1853-1864) 

WHETHER  the  Mentor  resigned  his  job  in  despair 
about  the  time  his  pupil  was  making  prudent  resolu- 
tions in  the  seclusion  of  the  little  inn  at  Quotla  di  Amalpas, 
or  whether  it  was  decided  by  the  parental  authority  that 
Labouchere  might  as  well  continue  his  search  for  wisdom  in 
Mexico  by  himself,  is  not  certain;  but  it  would  seem  that, 
just  about  three  months  after  his  landing  at  Vera  Cruz,  he 
parted  company  with  all  his  English  friends,  and,  with  a 
surprisingly  small  sum  for  such  an  adventure  in  his  pocket, 
rode  off,  and  wandered  for  eighteen  months  all  over  the 
country.  Then  he  returned  to  the  capital,  and  fell  in  love 
with  a  lady  of  the  circus.  The  published  legends  belonging 
to  this  period  of  his  career  are  legion.  The  authority  for 
them  appears  to  be  almost  always  Mr.  Joseph  Hatton,  who 
was  the  first  writer  to  produce  a  biographical  sketch  of  the 
editor  of  Truth.  He  wrote  it  for  Harper's  Magazine,  v/here 
it  formed  part  of  a  series  which,  in  1882,  was  published  in 
England  under  the  title  of  Journalistic  London.  According 
to  Hatton,  Labouchere  gave  him  certain  details  of  his  past 
in  an  interview  which  took  place  at  his  house  in  Queen  Anne's 
Gate,  so  that  Hatton's  evidence,  in  so  far  as  viva  voce  reminis- 
cences are  reliable,  is  unimpeachable.1 

1  Joseph  Hatton,  Journalistic  London. 

38 


1853-1864]       TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY  39 

Labouchere  told  him  that  he  travelled  with  the  troupe  to 
which  the  lady  he  admired  belonged,  and  got  the  job  of  door- 
keeper. The  circus  was  a  popular  one,  but  the  crowds  who 
flocked  to  it  were  not  all  in  a  position  to  pay  their  entrance 
with  hard  cash,  so  that  he  was  authorised  by  the  proprietors 
to  accept  payment  in  kind — usually  consisting  of  oranges  or 
small  measures  of  maize.  A  very  similar  story  is  related 
about  him  as  occurring  a  year  or  two  later  when  he  was 
attach^  at  Washington,  and  is  corroborated  for  me  by  Sir 
Audley  Gosling,  to  whom  Labouchere  related  it  one  day  in 
his  house  in  Old  Palace  Yard.  Sir  Audley  noticed  hanging 
on  the  wall  a  large  playbill,  and  asked  what  it  was. 

"  It's  a  funny  story, "  replied  Labouchere ;  "  I  will  tell  you 
about  it.  When  attach^  at  Washington  I  was  in  the  habit  of 
attending  almost  nightly  a  circus,  standing  often  at  the 
artistes'  entrance  to  the  ring.  The  proprietor  had  often 
scowled  at  me,  and  one  night  asked  me  what  I  meant  by 
trespassing  on  sacred  ground.  I  told  him  I  had  formed  an 
honourable  attachment  for  one  of  his  ladies,  and  simply 
stood  in  the  passage  to  kiss  the  hem  of  her  robe  as  she  passed 
by.  '  Get  out  of  this,  you  d — d  loafer, '  he  said.  And  I  got 
out.  A  few  months  later  I  pointed  out  to  my  chief  notices 
in  the  New  York  press  of  a  certain  American  sparkling  wine 
called,  after  the  district  where  it  was  grown,  'Kitawber. ' 
I  told  him  I  thought  a  report  should  be  made  on  this  new 
vintage,  and  volunteered  to  draw  up  a  report  for  the  Foreign 
Office.  He  seemed  surprised  by  my  assiduity  and  very 
unusual  zeal  (for  I  never  did  a  stroke  of  work),  and  said: 
'By  all  means  go — that  is  a  capital  idea  of  yours.'  The 
truth  was  my  circus  had  removed  to  Kitawber  and  with  it 
my  fair  lady  of  the  haute  Scale,  so  thither  I  proceeded.  I 
presented  myself  to  the  proprietor,  my  rude  friend,  and  told 
him  I  wished  for  an  engagement  with  his  troupe  without 
salary.  He  asked  me  what  my  line  was,  and  I  told  him 
standing  jumps.  Some  obstacles  were  placed  in  the  ring, 
over  which  I  jumped  with  great  success,  and  my  name 


40  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1853- 

figures  on  the  playbill  you  see  hanging  there  as  the  '  Bounding 
Buck  of  Babylon.'  I  wore  pink  tights,  with  a  fillet  round  my 
head.  My  adorable  one  said  I  looked  a  dear. " 

It  is  more  probable  that  these  two  stories  are  different 
versions  of  one  and  the  same  adventure  than  that  he  twice 
followed  a  travelling  circus.  No  doubt,  in  recounting  the 
tale,  he  confused  the  chronology. 

It  would  appear  that  the  well-known  story  of  his  six 
months'  residence  among  the  Chippeway  Indians,  usually 
related  as  an  incident  occurring  in  the  off  moments  of  his 
diplomatic  career,  really  took  place  towards  the  end  of  1853. 
Joseph  Hatton,  without  mentioning  any  dates,  relates  it  as 
follows:  "By  and  by  he  tired  of  this  occupation  (i.  e. 
travelling  with  the  circus),  and  went  to  the  United  States. 
He  found  himself  at  St.  Paul,  which  was  then  only  a  cluster 
of  houses.  Here  he  met  a  party  of  Chippeway  Indians  going 
back  to  their  homes.  He  went  with  them  and  lived  with 
them  for  six  months,  hunting  buffalo,  joining  in  their  work 
and  sports,  playing  cards  for  wampum  necklaces,  and  living 
what  to  Joaquin  Miller  would  have  been  a  poem  in  so  many 
stanzas,  but  which,  to  the  more  prosaic  Englishman,  was  just 
seeing  life  and  passing  away  the  time."  More  than  half  a 
century  later,  when  Mr.  Labouchere  was  living  at  Pope's 
villa,  he  invited  all  the  Indian  chiefs  and  their  families,  who 
were  at  that  time  taking  part  in  Buffalo  Bill's  Show  called 
"The  Wild  West,"  to  spend  a  Sunday  with  him  at  Twicken- 
ham. They  accepted  the  invitation,  and  arrived  betimes  in 
the  morning.  Mrs.  T.  P.  O'Connor,  who  was  a  visitor  at  the 
villa  on  the  occasion,  gives  a  graphic  account  of  Mr.  La- 
bouchere's  recognition,  in  the  person  of  one  of  the  Chippe- 
ways,  of  the  son  of  one  of  the  nomadic  friends  of  his  early 
youth.  She  goes  on  to  tell  the  story  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  ad- 
ventures with  the  Indians,  as  she  had  often  heard  him  tell  it. 

Nearly  sixty  years  ago,  [she  says],  Henry  Labouchere,  then 
an  adventurous  lad,  made  a  journey  in  the  west  of  America. 


1864]  TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY  41 

Minneapolis  was  at  that  time  called  St.  Anthony's  Falls,  and 
while  he  was  there  a  far-seeing  young  chemist  begged  him  to 
buy  the  land  on  which  Minneapolis  stands — it  was  to  be  sold  for 
a  very  small  sum,  now  it  is  worth  many  millions.  He  travelled 
still  farther  west  with  the  Chippeways,  who  were  going  to  their 
hunting  fields.  The  great  chief,  Hole  in  Heaven,  was  very  friendly 
with  him,  and  he  camped  in  one  of  their  wigwams  for  six  weeks, 
the  sister  of  the  chief  being  assigned  to  wait  upon  him.  She 
cooked  game  to  perfection,  roasting  wild  birds  in  clay  and  larger 
game  before  a  fire.  The  game  in  those  days  was  very  plentiful 
and  tame,  not  having  found  out  man  to  be  their  natural  enemy. 
Sometimes  prairie  chickens  came  near  enough  to  be  knocked  on 
the  head,  and  great  herds  of  buffalos  still  ranged  the  plains. 
The  Indians  often  killed  a  buffalo,  but  Mr.  Labouchere  was  not 
lucky  enough  to  get  one  for  himself.  He  saw  an  Indian  war-dance, 
but  discreetly,  from  a  slit  in  the  door  of  his  wigwam,  as  Hole 
in  Heaven  said  that,  friendly  as  they  were,  at  this  sacred  rite  a 
white  face  might  infuriate  them  even  to  the  use  of  the  tomahawk. 
Mr.  Labouchere  lingered  among  these  American  gentlemen  until 
the  last  steamer  had  departed  from  Fond  du  Lac,  so  he  was 
obliged  to  travel  in  a  canoe  until  he  reached  the  eastern  end  of 
the  lake.1 

After  his  experiences  in  the  Wild  West,  Labouchere  made 
New  York  his  quarters  for  some  time,  and  occupied  himself 
with  a  careful  study  of  the  institutions,  political  and  other- 
wise, of  the  American  nation,  for  which  he  acquired  at  this 
period  of  his  life  a  profound  and  lasting  admiration.  In  1883 
he  was  writing  to  Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain  on  the  subject  of 
Radical  policy,  and  he  said  in  the  course  of  his  letter:  "  I  was 
caught  young  and  sent  to  America;  there  I  imbibed  the  po- 
litical views  of  the  country,  so  that  my  Radicalism  is  not 
a  joke,  but  perfectly  earnest.  My  opinions  of  most  of  the 
institutions  of  this  country  is  that  of  Americans — that  they 
are  utterly  absurd  and  ridiculous. "  *  He  constantly  through- 
out his  career  drew  upon  his  youthful  reminiscences  of 

'  Mrs.  T.  P.  O'Connor,  7,  Myself. 

•  For  the  rest  of  this  interesting  letter  see  Chapter  X. 


42  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1853- 

America  to  point  a  moral  or  draw  a  comparison,  almost 
invariably  favourable  to  the  transatlantic  people.  In  a 
famous  article  which  he  wrote  in  1884,  to  demonstrate  to  the 
public  the  wide  divergency  existing  at  that  time  between 
Whig  and  Radical  principles,  while  discussing  the  financial 
relations  of  the  Crown  with  the  country,  he  said : 

The  President  of  the  United  States  regards  himself  as  gener- 
ously treated  with  a  salary  of  £10,000  per  annum.  We  give 
half  this  sum  to  a  nobleman  who  condescends  to  walk  before  the 
Chief  of  the  State  on  ceremonial  occasions  with  a  coloured  stick 
in  his  hand;  and  we  spend  more  than  five  times  this  sum  in 
keeping  a  yacht  in  commission  and  repair  on  which  our  sovereign 
steps  two  or  three  times  in  twenty  years ! 

In  the  same  article  he  compared  the  English  system  of 
education  with  the  American: 

If  M  *  *  *  *  wishes  to  learn  what  our  schools  ought  to  be,  let 
him  go  to  the  State  of  Illinois.  A  child  there  enters  school  at  the 
age  of  six.  Each  school  is  divided  into  ten  grades;  at  the  end  of 
each  year  there  is  an  examination,  and  a  child  goes  up  one  or  more 
grades  according  to  his  proficiency.  A  lad  going  through  all  the 
grades  acquires  an  excellent  liberal  education ;  if  he  passes  through 
the  "high  school"  he  is,  by  a  very  long  degree,  the  educational 
superior  of  the  majority  of  our  youths  who  have  spent  years  at 
Eton  or  at  Harrow.  All  this  does  not  cost  his  parents  one  cent. 
Rich  and  poor  alike  send  their  children  to  the  public  schools, 
and  thus  all  class  prejudice  is  early  stamped  out  of  the  American 
breast.  Another  advantage  of  these  schools  is  that  boys  and  girls 
are  taught  together.  The  girls  thus  learn  early  how  to  take  care 
of  themselves,  and  the  boys'  manners  are  softened.  When  grown 
up,  boys  and  girls  are  not  kept  apart  as  though  they  were  each 
other's  natural  enemies,  nor  are  there  any  ill  effects  from  their 
associating  together.  If  some  marry,  the  relations  of  those  who 
do  not  are  those  of  brothers  and  sisters.  The  Duke  of  Wellington 
is  reported  to  have  said  that  Waterloo  was  won  in  the  Eton 
playing  fields.  Not  only  was  the  Union  maintained  in  many 
battlefields,  but  America  has  become  the  most  forward  nation 


1864]  TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY  43 

in  the  world  owing  to  her  schools.  How  pitiably  small  and 
narrow  does  our  school  system  appear  in  comparison  with  theirs ! 
Why  cannot  we  do  what  has  been  done  in  America?  Why? 
Because  the  land  is  too  full  of  men  .  .  .  ignorant,  servile,  and 
aware  that  their  only  chance  of  succeeding  in  life  is  to  perpetuate 
class  distinctions,  and  to  deprive  the  vast  majority  of  their  fellow- 
citizens  of  the  possibility  of  competing  with  them  by  depriving 
them  of  the  blessings  of  any  real  education.  Which  would  be 
to  the  greater  advantage  of  the  country,  a  Church  Establishment 
such  as  ours,  or  a  school  establishment  such  as  that  of  Illinois? 
What  Radical  entertains  a  doubt?  If  so,  why  do  not  we  at  once 
substitute  the  one  for  the  other?1 

In  his  letters  to  the  Daily  News  during  the  autumn  and 
winter  of  1870  and  1871,  he  wrote  from  Paris  commenting  on 
the  behaviour  of  the  English  and  American  officials  of  the 
Diplomatic  Corps  who  remained  in  Paris  during  the  siege. 
"Diplomats, "  he  wrote  on  September 28th,  "are  little  better 
than  old  women  when  they  have  to  act  in  an  emergency. 
Were  it  not  for  Mr.  Washburne,  who  was  brought  up  in  the 
rough-and-ready  life  of  the  Far  West,  instead  of  serving  an 
apprenticeship  in  Courts  and  Government  offices,  those  who 
are  still  here  would  be  perfectly  helpless.  They  come  to  him 
at  all  moments,  and  although  he  cannot  speak  French,  for  all 
practical  purposes,  he  is  worth  more  than  all  his  colleagues 
put  together. "  In  another  letter  he  gives  an  amusing  picture 
of  the  worried  English  charg6  d'affaires,  immersed  in  official 
trivialities:  "A  singular  remonstrance  has  been  received  at 
the  British  Embassy.  In  the  Rue  de  Chaillot  resides  a  cele- 
brated English  courtesan,  called  Cora  Pearl,  and  above  her 
house  floats  the  English  flag.  The  inhabitants  of  the  street 
request  the  Ambassador  of  England,  'a  country,  the  purity 
and  decency  of  whose  manners  is  well  known,'  to  cause  this 
bit  of  bunting,  which  is  a  scandal  in  their  eyes,  to  be  hauled 
down.  I  left  Mr.  Wodehouse  consulting  the  text- writers 
upon  international  law,  in  order  to  discover  a  precedent  for 

1  "Radical  and  Whigs,"  Fortnightly  Review,  Feb.  I,  1884. 


44  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1853- 

the  case. "  It  contrasts  sharply  enough  with  the  glimpse  he 
gives  his  readers  of  the  American  Embassy.  "I  passed  the 
afternoon, "  he  wrote  on  November  I5th,  "greedily  devouring 
the  news  at  the  American  Legation.  It  was  a  curious  sight— 
the  Chancellerie  was  crowded  with  people  engaged  in  the 
same  occupation.  There  were  several  French  journalists, 
opening  their  eyes  very  wide,  under  the  impression  that  this 
would  enable  them  to  understand  English.  A  Secretary  of 
Legation  was  sitting  at  a  table  giving  audiences  to  unnum- 
bered ladies  who  wished  to  know  how  they  could  leave  Paris; 
or,  if  this  was  impossible,  how  they  could  draw  on  their 
bankers  in  New  York.  Mr.  Washburne  walked  about 
cheerily  shaking  every  one  by  the  hand,  and  telling  them  to 
make  themselves  at  home.  How  different  American  diplo- 
matists are  to  the  prim  old  women  who  represent  us  abroad, 
with  a  staff  of  half  a  dozen  dandies  helping  each  other  to  do 
nothing,  who  have  been  taught  to  regard  all  who  are  not  of 
the  craft  as  their  natural  enemies. "  Yet  another  quotation 
from  Labouchere's  journalistic  correspondence,  illustrating 
his  predilection  for  things  American:  "The  ambulance  which 
is  considered  the  best  is  the  American.  The  wounded  are 
under  canvas,  the  tents  are  not  cold,  and  yet  the  ventilation 
is  admirable.  The  American  surgeons  are  far  more  skilful 
in  the  treatment  of  gunshot  wounds  than  their  French 
colleagues.  Instead  of  amputation  they  practise  resection 
of  the  bone.  It  is  the  dream  of  every  French  soldier,  if  he  is 
wounded,  to  be  taken  to  this  ambulance.  They  seem  to  be 
under  the  impression  that,  even  if  their  legs  are  shot  off,  the 
skill  of  the  Esculapii  of  the  United  States  will  make  them 
grow  again.  Be  this  as  it  may,  a  person  might  be  worse  off 
than  stretched  on  a  bed  with  a  slight  wound  under  the  tents 
of  the  Far  West.  The  French  have  a  notion  that,  go  where 
you  may,  to  the  top  of  a  pyramid  or  to  the  top  of  Mont  Blanc, 
you  are  sure  to  meet  an  Englishman  reading  a  newspaper ;  in 
my  experience  of  the  world,  the  American  girl  is  far  more 
inevitable  than  the  Britisher;  and,  of  course,  under  the  stars 


1864]  TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY  45 

and  stripes  which  wave  over  the  American  tents,  she  is  to  be 
found,  tending  the  sick,  and,  when  there  is  nothing  more  to 
be  got  for  them,  patiently  reading  to  them  or  playing  at 
cards  with  them.  I  have  a  great  weakness  for  the  American 
girl ;  she  always  puts  her  heart  in  what  she  is  about.  When 
she  flirts  she  does  it  conscientiously,  and  when  she  nurses  a 
most  uninviting-looking  Zouave,  or  Franc-tireur,  she  does  it 
equally  conscientiously;  besides,  as  a  rule,  she  is  pretty,  a 
gift  of  nature  which  I  am  very  far  from  undervaluing. " 

To  resume  our  narrative.  At  home  the  parental  and 
avuncular  authorities  had  been  at  work,  puzzling  as  to  what 
career  would  best  suit  the  young  searcher  for  wisdom,  the 
irrepressible  Eton  blood — the  baby  of  the  preparatory  school, 
who,  without  his  milk  teeth,  was  able  to  confound  the  ruffi- 
ans of  the  cane  and  their  assistants — the  undaunted  enemy 
of  university  dons  and  pedagogues.  Finally,  it  was  decided 
that  the  diplomatic  service  would  be,  at  any  rate  for  a  time, 
the  best  safety-valve  for  the  inquisitive  youth.  Henry 
Labouchere  was  on  one  of  his  unconventional  tours  in  his 
beloved  Wild  West  when  he  heard  of  his  first  diplomatic 
appointment.  He  was  appointed  attach^  at  Washington  on 
July  16,  1854. 

Mr.  Crampton  had  been  Minister  at  Washington  since 
1852,  and,  at  the  time  of  Labouchere  taking  up  his  duties  at 
the  Legation,  Lord  Elgin,  then  Governor  of  Canada,  was 
on  a  special  mission  to  Washington.  Mr.  Crampton  had 
not  succeeded  in  making  himself  at  all  agreeable  to  the 
American  statesmen,  and  during  the  Crimean  War  he  had 
nearly  caused  a  rupture  between  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States  over  the  question  of  recruiting.  The  exigen- 
cies of  war  had  brought  about  the  reprehensible  practice  of 
raising  various  foreign  corps  and  pressing  them — or  crimping 
them — into  the  British  service.  Crampton  very  actively 
forwarded  the  schemes  of  his  Government  by  encouraging 
the  recruiting  of  soldiers  within  the  territories  of  the  United 
States.  It  was  not,  however,  until  1856  that  the  President 


46  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1853- 

of  the  United  States  came  to  a  determination  to  discontinue 
official  intercourse  with  him  on  account  of  the  recruiting 
question.  This  necessitated  his  removal  from  Washington, 
and  the  feeling  against  him  in  the  United  States  was  so  strong 
that  diplomatic  relations  were  not  renewed  with  Great 
Britain  for  more  than  six  months. '  There  is  no  evidence  of 
any  kind  to  support  the  statements  that  have  appeared  from 
time  to  time  in  the  press,  to  the  effect  that  Henry  Labouchere 
was  involved  in  the  crimping  business.  During  the  time  he 
spent  at  Washington  he  seems  to  have  been  an  assiduous 
worker — to  which  the  number  of  despatches  in  his  hand- 
writing preserved  in  the  archives  of  the  Record  Office  bear 
witness. 

He  related  in  Truth,  some  years  later,  how  his  energy 
received  a  check  at  the  very  outset  of  his  career.  "When 
I  joined  the  diplomatic  service,"  he  said,  "I  was  sent  as 
attach^  to  a  legation  where  a  cynic  was  the  minister.  New 
brooms  sweep  clean.  Every  morning  I  appeared,  eager  to  be 
employed,  a  sort  of  besom  tied  up  in  red  tape.  Said  the 
cynic  to  me :  '  If  you  fancy  that  you  are  likely  to  get  on  in  the 
service  by  hard  work,  you  will  soon  discover  your  error;  far 
better  will  it  be  for  you  if  you  can  prove  that  some  relation  of 
yours  is  the  sixteenth  cousin  of  the  porter  at  the  Foreign 
Office. '  It  was  not  long  before  I  discovered  that  the  cynic 
was  right. " 

It  was  the  fate  of  Henry  Labouchere,  wherever  he  went, 
to  create  an  atmosphere  of  unconventionality,  which  formed 
a  fitting  background  for  the  numberless  stories  which  seem 
still  to  collect  and  grow  round  his  name  as  time  goes  on. 
During  one  of  Mr.  Crampton's  absences  from  the  Legation, 
he  had  an  opportunity  of  exercising  the  official  reserve  and 


1  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  Mr.  Crampton's  proceedings  in  America  did 
not  stand  in  his  way,  so  far  as  promotion  in  the  service  was  concerned.  He 
was  appointed  Envoy-Extraordinary  at  Hanover  almost  immediately;  Lord 
Palmerston  insisted  upon  his  being  made  a  K.C.B.,  and  he  became  Ambassador 
at  St.  Petersburg  in  1858.  (Dictionary  of  National  Biography.) 


1864]  TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY  47 

discretion  for  which  the  English  diplomats  have  always  been 
so  famous.  An  American  citizen  called  one  morning  to  see 
Mr.  Crampton.  "I  want  to  see  the  boss, "  he  said.  "You 
can't — he  is  out,"  replied  Labouchere.  "But  you  can  see 
me. "  "  You  are  no  good, "  replied  the  American.  "  I  must 
see  the  boss.  I'll  wait."  "Very  well,"  calmly  said  the 
attache^  and  went  on  with  his  letter-writing.  The  visitor 
sat  down  and  waited  for  a  considerable  time.  At  last  he 
said:  "I've  been  fooling  round  here  two  hours;  has  the  chief 
come  in  yet?" — "No;  you  will  see  him  drive  up  to  the  front 
door  when  he  returns." — "How  long  do  you  reckon  he  will 
be  before  he  comes?"  "Well,"  said  Labouchere,  "he  went 
to  Canada  yesterday ;  I  should  say  he  '11  be  here  in  about  six 
weeks. " 

In  spite  of  all  his  good  resolutions  Labouchere  was  still  a 
gambler,  and  once  found  himself  in  what  might  have  been  an 
awkward  scrape  owing  to  this  propensity.  All  who  knew 
him  at  all  intimately  must  often  have  heard  him  tell  the 
following  episode,  which  I  will  relate  as  nearly  as  possible  in 
his  own  words:  "While  I  was  attach^  at  Washington  I  was 
sent  by  the  minister  to  look  after  some  Irish  patriots  at 
Boston.  I  took  up  my  residence  at  a  small  hotel,  and  wrote 
down  an  imaginary  name  in  the  hotel  book  as  mine.  In  the 
evening  I  went  to  a  gambling  establishment,  where  I  lost 
all  the  money  I  had  with  me  except  half  a  dollar.  Then  I 
went  to  bed,  satisfied  with  my  prowess.  The  next  morning 
the  bailiffs  seized  on  the  hotel  for  debt,  and  all  the  guests 
were  requested  to  pay  their  bills  and  to  take  away  their 
luggage.  I  could  not  pay  mine,  and  so  I  could  not  take  away 
my  luggage.  All  that  I  could  do  was  to  write  to  Washington 
for  a  remittance,  and  to  wait  two  days  for  its  arrival.  The 
first  day  I  walked  about,  and  spent  my  half  dollar  on  food. 
It  was  summer,  so  I  slept  on  a  bench  on  the  common,  and 
in  the  morning  went  to  the  bay  to  wash  myself.  I  felt 
independent  of  all  the  cares  and  troubles  of  civilisation. 
But  I  had  nothing  with  which  to  buy  myself  a  breakfast. 


48  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1853- 

I  grew  hungry  and,  towards  evening,  more  hungry  still,  so 
much  so  that  I  entered  a  restaurant  and  ordered  dinner, 
without  any  clear  idea  how  I  was  to  pay  for  it,  except  by 
leaving  my  coat  in  pledge.  In  those  days  Boston  restau- 
rants were  mostly  in  cellars,  and  there  was  a  bar  near  the 
door,  where  the  proprietor  sat  to  receive  payment.  As  I 
ate  my  dinner  I  observed  that  all  the  waiters,  who  were 
Irishmen,  were  continually  staring  at  me,  and  evidently 
speaking  of  me  to  each  other.  A  guilty  conscience  made  me 
think  that  this  was  because  I  had  an  impecunious  look,  and 
that  they  were  discussing  whether  my  clothes  would  cover 
my  bill.  At  last  one  of  them  approached  me,  and  said:  "I 
beg  your  pardon,  sir;  are  you  the  patriot  Meagher?"  Now 
this  patriot  was  a  gentleman  who  had  aided  Smith  O'Brien 
in  his  Irish  rising,  had  been  sent  to  Australia,  and  had 
escaped  thence  to  the  United  States.  It  was  my  business  to 
look  after  patriots,  so  I  put  my  finger  before  my  lips,  and 
said:  "Hush!"  while  I  cast  up  my  eyes  to  the  ceiling  as 
though  I  saw  a  vision  of  Erin  beckoning  to  me.  It  was  felt 
at  once  that  I  was  Meagher.  The  choicest  viands  were 
placed  before  me,  and  most  excellent  wine.  When  I  had 
done  justice  to  all  the  good  things  I  approached  the  bar  and 
asked  boldly  for  my  bill.  The  proprietor,  also  an  Irishman 
said:  "From  a  man  like  you,  who  has  suffered  in  the  good 
cause,  I  can  take  no  money;  allow  a  brother  patriot  to  shake 
you  by  the  hand. "  I  allowed  him.  I  further  allowed  all  the 
waiters  to  shake  hands  with  me,  and  stalked  forth  with  the 
stern,  resolved,  but  somewhat  condescendingly  dismal  air 
which  I  have  seen  assumed  by  patriots  in  exile.  Again  I 
slept  on  the  common,  again  I  washed  in  the  bay.  Then  I 
went  to  the  post  office,  found  a  letter  for  me  from  Washing- 
ton with  some  money  in  it,  and  breakfasted. " 

Another  anecdote  Labouchere  was  fond  of  recalling  about 
his  Washington  days  was  the  following:  Having  planned  a 
little  holiday  excursion,  he  found  at  the  Chancellerie  a  letter 
awaiting  him,  addressed  in  the  well-known  handwriting  of  his 


1864]  TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY  49 

chief.  Shrewdly  suspecting  that  the  instructions  it  contained 
would  render  his  holiday  impossible,  he  put  the  letter  un- 
opened in  his  coat-tail  pocket,  and  carried  out  with  great 
satisfaction  to  himself  his  holiday  intentions.  Then  he 
opened  his  letter,  and  found  that  his  suspicions  of  its  contents 
had  been  very  well  founded.  He  wrote  a  nice  letter  of 
apology  to  his  chief,  beginning,  "Your  letter  has  followed  me 
here,"  which  was,  after  all,  nothing  but  the  simple  truth! 

"It  is  a  funny  thing,"  Labouchere  would  often  say, 
speaking  of  treaties  and  diplomatic  negotiations  in  general, 
"to  notice  on  what  small  matters  success  or  the  reverse  is 
dependent";  and  he  would  then  relate  how,  when  he  was 
attach^  at  Washington,  he  went  down  with  the  British 
Minister  to  a  small  inn  at  Virginia  to  meet  Mr.  Marcy,  the 
Secretary  of  State  for  the  United  States,  for  the  purpose  of 
discussing  a  reciprocity  treaty  between  Canada  and  the 
United  States.  Mr.  Marcy,  in  general  the  most  genial  and 
agreeable  of  men,  was  as  cross  as  a  bear,  and  would  agree  to 
nothing.  Labouchere  asked  the  secretary  to  tell  him,  in 
confidence,  what  was  the  matter  with  his  chief.  The  secre- 
tary replied :  "  He  is  not  getting  his  rubber  of  whist. "  After 
that  the  British  Minister  proposed  a  rubber  of  whist  every 
night,  which  he  invariably  lost.  Mr.  Marcy  was  im- 
mensely pleased  at  beating  the  Britishers  at,  what  he  called 
"  their  own  game, "  and  his  good  humour  returned.  "  Every 
morning,"  Labouchere  related,  "when  the  details  of  the 
treaty  were  being  discussed,  we  had  our  revenge,  and  scored 
a  few  points  for  Canada. " 

Labouchere  was  transferred  to  the  Legation  at  Munich  in 
December,  1855.  "Old  King  Louis  was  then  alive,"  he 
wrote  thirty  years  later,  "although  he  had  been  deposed  for 
making  a  fool  of  himself  over  Lola  Montes.  I  used  frequent- 
ly to  meet  him  in  the  streets,  when  he  always  stopped  me  to 
ask  how  Queen  Victoria  was.  I  had  at  last  respectfully 
to  tell  him  that  Her  Majesty  was  not  in  the  habit  of  writing 
to  me  every  day  respecting  her  health. " 


50  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1853- 

From  Munich  he  went  to  Stockholm  in  1857.  I  can- 
not resist  quoting  in  full  his  account  of  the  duel  he  fought 
while  at  Stockholm  with  the  Austrian  charge  d'affaires,  it  is 
so  extremely  characteristic  of  him  both  in  spirit  and  style. 

At  Stockholm  "I  found  favour  with  my  superiors  for 
the  curious  reason  that  I  challenged  an  Austrian  charg6 
d'affaires.  Never  was  there  a  more  absurd  affair.  There  was 
an  Englishman  who  had  been  challenged  by  a  Swede,  whom 
he  declined  to  fight.  A  few  days  later  the  Englishman  went 
with  my  Minister  to  a  box  in  the  theatre.  The  next  day  at 
a  club  the  Austrian  charge"  d'affaires  said  before  me  and 
others  that  Englishmen  had  odd  ideas  of  honour,  and  more 
particularly  English  Ministers.  I  replied  that  Englishmen 
were  not  so  silly  as  to  fight  duels,  and  that  the  English  Minis- 
ter was  not  a  dishonourable  man  for  appearing  in  a  theatre 
with  his  countrymen.  As  it  was  generally  felt  that  I  ought 
to  challenge  this  Austrian,  I  'put  myself  in  the  hands '  of  the 
French  and  Prussian  Ministers.  A  few  hours  later  my 
seconds  came  to  me.  I  expected  that  they  were  going  to  tell 
me  that  the  Austrian  had  apologised.  Not  at  all.  With  a 
cheerful  smile  they  observed :  '  It  is  arranged  for  to-morrow 
morning — pistols. '  At  seven  o'clock  A.M.  they  reappeared. 
Their  countenances  were  downcast.  '  I  have  lost  the  mould 
for  the  bullets  of  my  duelling  pistols, '  observed  the  Prussian, 
'and  we  have  had  to  borrow  a  pair  of  pistols,  for  whose 
accuracy  of  aim  I  cannot  vouch.'  This  inwardly  rejoiced 
me,  but,  of  course,  I  pretended  to  share  in  the  regret  of  my 
seconds.  We  sat  down  to  an  early  breakfast.  'You  are 
young,  I  am  old, '  said  the  Frenchman ;  '  would  that  I  could 
take  your  place. '  I  wished  it  as  sincerely  as  he  did,  but  I 
tried  to  assume  an  air  of  rather  liking  my  position,  and  I 
grinned  a  ghastly  grin.  Then  we  started  for  the  park.  The 
opposition  had  not  arrived ;  but  there  was  a  surgeon,  who  had 
been  kindly  requested  to  attend  by  my  sympathising  friends. 
'An  accident  may  happen,'  observed  the  Prussian;  'do 
you  wish  to  confide  to  me  any  dispositions  that  you  may 


1864]  TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY  51 

desire  to  be  carried  out  after ? '  and  he  sighed  in  a  horribly 

suggestive  manner.  '  No, '  I  said ;  I  had  nothing  particular 
to  confide ;  and  as  I  looked  at  the  surgeon  I  thought  what  an 
idiot  I  was  to  make  myself  the  target  for  an  Austrian  to  aim 
at,  in  order  to  establish  the  principle  that  Englishmen  have  a 
perfect  right  to  decline  to  fight  duels.  There  was  a  want  of 
logic  about  the  entire  proceeding  that  went  to  my  heart. 
To  be  killed  is  bad  enough,  but  to  be  killed  paradoxically  is 
still  worse.  Soon  the  Austrian  and  his  seconds  appeared. 
I  never  felt  more  dismal  in  my  life.  The  Austrian  stood 
apart;  I  stood  apart.  The  surgeon  already  eyed  me  as  a 
'subject.'  The  seconds  consulted;  then  the  Frenchman 
stepped  out  twelve  paces.  He  had  very  short  legs,  and  they 
seemed  to  me  shorter  than  ever.  After  this  came  the  loading 
of  the  pistols.  Sometimes,  I  thought,  seconds  do  not  put  in 
the  bullets;  this  comforted  me,  but  only  for  a  moment,  for 
the  bullets  were  rammed  down  with  cheerful  energy.  By 
this  time  we  had  been  placed  facing  each  other.  A  pistol  was 
given  to  each  of  us.  'I  am  to  give  the  signal,'  said  the 
Prussian;  'I  shall  count  one,  two,  three,  and  then  at  the 
word  fire,  you  will  both  fire.  Gentlemen,  are  you  ready?' 
We  both  nodded.  'One,  two,  three,  fire!'  and  both  our 
pistols  went  off.  No  harm  had  been  done.  I  felt  consider- 
ably relieved  when  to  my  horror  the  Frenchman  stepped  up  to 
me,  and  said :  '  I  think  that  I  ought  to  demand  a  second  shot 
for  you,  but  mind,  if  nothing  occurs  again,  I  shall  not  allow  a 
third  shot. '  '  Ye — es, '  I  said ;  so  we  had  a  second  shot,  with 
the  same  result.  Knowing  that  my  Frenchman  was  a  man  of 
his  word,  I  felt  now  that  I  might  at  no  risk  to  myself  display 
my  valour,  so  I  demanded  a  third  shot.  The  seconds  consulted 
together;  for  a  moment  I  feared  that  they  were  going  to  grant 
my  request,  and  I  was  greatly  relieved  when  they  informed 
me  that  they  considered  that  two  shots  were  amply  sufficient. 
I  was  delighted,  but  I  pretended  to  be  most  unhappy,  and 
religiously  kept  up  the  farce  of  being  an  aggrieved  person. " f 

1  Truth,  May  23,  1878. 


52  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1853- 

He  was  at  Frankfort  and  St.  Petersburg  between  Novem- 
ber, 1858,  and  the  summer  of  1860.  While  he  was  at  Frank- 
fort he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Bismarck,  who  was  the 
Prussian  representative  at  the  restored  Diet  of  Frankfort. 
Labouchere  had  a  constitutional  dislike  of  the  German 
people,  with  the  exception  of  the  great  Chancellor.  He  wrote 
some  years  later:  "The  only  Prussian  I  ever  knew  who  was 
an  agreeable  man  was  Bismarck.  All  others  with  whom  I 
have  been  thrown — and  I  have  lived  for  years  in  Germany — 
were  proud  as  Scotchmen,  cold  as  New  Englanders,  and 
touchy  as  only  Prussians  can  be.  I  once  had  a  friend  among 
them.  His  name  was  Buckenbrock.  I  inadvertently  called 
him  Butterbrod.  We  have  never  spoken  since ! "  Bismarck 
was  an  eminently  social  person,  fond  of  drinking  and  smoking, 
and  many  a  time  did  Labouchere  listen  to  his  jovial  loud- 
toned  talk  in  the  cafes  at  Frankfort.  "  Bismarck, "  he  wrote 
in  later  life,  "used  to  pass  entire  nights  drinking  beer  in  a 
garden  overlooking  the  Main.  In  the  morning  after  a  night 
passed  in  beer-drinking  he  would  write  his  despatches,  then 
issue  forth  on  a  white  horse  for  a  ride,  and  on  his  return, 
attend  the  Diet,  of  which  he  was  a  member. " x  It  is  interest- 
ing to  note  how  very  similar  were  the  judgments  of  these 
two  exceedingly  different  characters  upon  the  subject  of 
diplomacy  and  its  aspects  of  absurdity  and  pomposity. 
Bismarck  wrote  from  Frankfort:  "Frankfort  is  hideously 
tiresome.  The  people  here  worry  themselves  about  the 
merest  rubbish,  and  these  diplomatists  with  their  pompous 
peddling  already  appear  to  me  a  good  deal  more  ridiculous 
than  a  member  of  the  second  chamber  in  all  the  pride  of  his 
lofty  station.  Unless  external  accidents  should  accrue,  .  .  . 
I  know  exactly  how  much  we  shall  effect  in  one,  two,  or  five 
years  from  the  present  time,  and  will  engage  to  do  it  all  my- 
self within  four-and-twenty  hours,  if  the  others  will  only  be 
truthful  and  sensible  throughout  one  single  day.  I  never 
doubted  that,  one  and  all,  these  gentlemen  prepared  their 

1  Truth,  Feb.  8,  1877. 


1864]  TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY  53 

dishes  d  Veau,  but  such  thin,  mawkish  water  soup  as  this, 
devoid  of  the  least  symptom  of  richness,  positively  astounds 
me.  Send  me  your  village  schoolmaster  or  road  inspector, 
clean  washed  and  combed ;  they  will  make  just  as  good  diplo- 
matists as  these."1  Of  diplomatic  literature  Bismarck 
observed:  "For  the  most  part  it  is  nothing  but  paper  and 
ink.  If  you  wanted  to  utilise  it  for  historical  purposes,  you 
could  not  get  anything  worth  having  out  of  it.  I  believe  it  is 
the  rule  to  allow  historians  to  consult  the  F.  O.  Archives  at 
the  expiration  of  thirty  years  (after  date  of  despatches,  etc.). 
They  might  be  permitted  to  examine  them  much  sooner,  for 
the  despatches  and  letters,  when  they  contain  any  informa- 
tion at  all,  are  quite  unintelligible  to  those  unacquainted 
with  the  persons  and  relations  treated  of  in  them."*  La- 
bouchere  wrote  in  1889 :  "  If  all  Foreign  Office  telegrams  were 
published,  they  would  be  curious  reading.  Years  ago  I  was 
an  attache"  at  Stockholm.  The  present  Queen,  then  Duchess 
of  Ostrogotha,  had  a  baby,  and  a  telegram  came  from  the 
Foreign  Office  desiring  that  Her  Majesty's  congratulations 
should  be  offered,  and  that  she  should  be  informed  how  the 
mother  and  child  were.  The  Minister  was  away,  so  off  I 
went  to  the  Palace  to  convey  the  message  and  to  inquire 
about  the  health  of  the  pair.  A  solemn  gentleman  received 
me.  I  informed  him  of  my  orders,  and  requested  him  to  say 
what  I  was  to  reply.  "Her  Royal  Highness,"  he  replied, 
"is  as  well  as  can  be  expected,  but  His  Royal  Highness  is 
suffering  a  little  internally,  and  it  is  thought  that  this  is  due 
to  the  milk  of  the  wet  nurse  having  been  slightly  sour 
yesterday  evening."  I  telegraphed  this  to  the  Foreign 
Office. "» 

In  a  speech  he  made  in  the  House  of  Commons,4  pro- 
testing against  a  sum  of  nearly  £50,000  being  voted  for  the 
salaries  and  expenses  of  the  department  for  Her  Majesty's 
Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  Mr.  Labouchere  said, 

1  Busch,  Our  Chancellor.  'Ibid.  *  Truth,  May  23,  1889. 

*  Hansard,  July  14,  1884. 


54  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1853- 

referring  in  particular  to  Foreign  Office  messengers,  that 
very  often  these  gentlemen  were  sent  abroad,  at  a  very  large 
cost  to  the  country,  for  no  practical  object  whatever.  They 
went  on  a  certain  route,  and  the  business  was  made  up  for 
them  as  they  went.  He  had  had  the  honour  to  serve  at  one 
time  under  Sir  Henry  Bulwer  at  Constantinople.  Now  Sir 
Henry  Bulwer  was  always  ill;  and  on  one  occasion  he  re- 
membered making  a  calculation  that  a  box  of  pills  Sir  Henry 
was  anxious  to  obtain,  and  which  was  sent  out  by  a  Foreign 
Office  messenger,  cost  the  country  from  £200  to  £300. 
Probably  the  pills  did  Sir  Henry  good,  and  pills  were  much 
more  useful  than  a  good  deal  of  the  stuff  sent  out  by  the 
Foreign  Office.  He  went  on  to  tell  the  House  that  he  had 
himself  been  in  the  diplomatic  service  for  ten  years,  and  he 
had  spent  a  great  deal  of  his  time  in  ciphering  and  deciphering 
telegrams,  and  that  he  could  not  remember  half  a  dozen  of 
them  that  any  man,  woman,  or  child  in  the  whole  world 
would  have  taken  any  trouble  to  decipher  for  any  information 
that  could  have  been  derived  from  them. 

Labouchere  used  always  to  say  that,  while  he  was 
attache1  at  Frankfort,  he  spent  most  of  his  time  at  Wiesbaden, 
Homburg,  or  Baden,  because  he  found  the  Diet  of  the 
German  Confederation  "rather  a  dull  sort  of  affair."  He 
managed,  however,  to  make  a  great  many  very  staunch 
friends  at  this  period  of  his  life.  One  of  these  was  the  old 
Duchess  of  Cambridge.  He  was  a  frequent  visitor  at  the 
Schloss  of  Ruppenheim,  which  was  the  summer  meeting- 
place  of  the  main  stock  and  branches  of  the  Hesses.  The 
old  Duchess  made  a  great  fuss  over  him,  for  he  could  speak 
the  German  of  Hanover  so  well  that  she  could  understand  his 
banter  and  enjoy  it.  His  popularity  at  Frankfort,  according 
to  his  own  account,  rested  on  a  very  simple  basis.  Great 
Britain  was  represented  at  the  Diet  by  Sir  Alexander  Malet, 
one  of  the  most  popular  chiefs  to  be  found  in  the  Service. 
"  But  I  was  even  more  appreciated  than  my  chief, "  he  would 
relate,  "and  this  is  why.  Sometimes  there  was  a  ball  at  the 


1864]  TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY  55 

Court,  which  we  were  expected  to  attend.  At  my  first  ball 
supper  I  found  myself  next  to  a  grandee,  gorgeous  in  stars 
and  ribbons.  The  servant  came  to  pour  out  champagne. 
I  shook  my  head,  for  I  detest  champagne.  The  grandee 
nudged  me,  and  said,  'Let  him  pour  it  out.'  This  I  did, 
and  he  explained  to  me  that  our  host  never  gave  his  guests 
more  than  one  glass,  'So  you  see,  if  I  drink  yours,  I  shall 
have  two. '  After  this  there  used  to  be  quite  a  struggle  to 
sit  near  me  at  Court  suppers. " 

Yet  another  ridiculous  reminiscence  of  the  Court  of 
Darmstadt,  dating  from  his  attache  days  at  Frankfort.  Sir 
Alexander  Malet  was  fond  of  whist,  and  it  was  felt,  said 
Labouchere,  that  an  English  diplomatist  could  not  be  ex- 
pected to  play  the  game  for  less  than  florin  points.  Such 
stakes,  however,  the  fortune  of  no  Darmstadt  nobleman  could 
stand.  A  sort  of  joint  purse  was  therefore  formed,  which 
was  entrusted  to  the  three  best  players  of  the  grand-ducal 
Court,  and  these  champions  encountered  the  Englishman. 
"It  was  amusing,"  Labouchere  would  relate,  "to  watch  the 
anxiety  depicted  on  all  countenances :  when  the  Minister  won 
all  was  gloom ;  when  he  lost,  counts  and  countesses,  barons 
and  baronesses,  skipped  about  in  high  glee,  like  the  hills  of 
the  Psalmist. " 

Bismarck  was  Ambassador  at  St.  Petersburg  during  the 
year  that  Labouchere  was  there  as  attach^  in  1860,  so  it  is 
very  probable  that  he  continued  to  imbibe  wisdom  from 
listening  to  the  conversation  of  the  great  German,  for  whose 
powers  of  statecraft  he  always  expressed  the  warmest 
admiration.  The  following  amusing  episode  occurred  during 
his  year  at  St.  Petersburg.  He  was  in  love  with  the  wife  of 
one  of  the  gentlemen  about  the  Court.  So  was  a  tall,  smart 
young  Frenchman.  Labouchere  was  desperately  jealous  of 
his  rival,  but  could  think  of  no  means  of  outwitting  him. 
At  a  Court  function  they  were  both  standing  near  the  object 
of  their  admiration,  the  Frenchman  making,  it  seemed  to 
Labouchere,  marked  advances  in  the  lady's  favour.  How- 


56  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1853- 

ever  he  was  soon  called  away  for  some  reason  or  another. 
Labouchere,  in  his  eagerness  to  seize  the  opportunity  and 
advance  his  own  suit,  inadvertently  tipped  his  cup  of  black 
coffee  over  the  lady's  magnificent  yellow  satin  train.  He 
was  in  despair,  but,  seeing  that  she  had  not  yet  perceived  the 
tragedy,  he  slipped  the  cup  and  saucer  into  his  tail-coat 
pocket,  and  then,  with  an  air  of  commiseration,  drew  her 
attention  to  the  ruined  gown.  "Who  did  it? "  she  exclaimed 
furiously.  Labouchere  put  his  finger  to  his  lips,  at  the  same 
time  looking  significantly  at  the  form  of  his  rival,  at  that 
moment  disappearing  through  the  doorway.  "I  know  who 
did  it,"  he  said,  "but  wild  horses  would  not  induce  me  to 
tell  you. "  Of  course,  the  lady  had  followed  the  direction  of 
his  glance.  She  exclaimed :  "That  ruffian,  I  will  never  speak 
to  him  again  as  long  as  I  live ! "  History  does  not  relate  how 
the  adventure  proceeded  for  the  handsome  Frenchman's  rival. 
Labouchere  did  not  think  much  of  the  Russians.  He 
used  to  say  that  they  were  like  monkeys,  eager  to  copy  the 
manners  of  civilised  Europe,  but  that  the  copy  they  succeeded 
in  producing  was  a  daub  and  not  a  picture,  because  they 
always  exaggerated  their  originals.  When  they  were  polite, 
they  were  too  polite;  when  they  were  copying  Frenchmen, 
they  were  too  much  like  dancing  masters;  and  when  they 
were  copying  Englishmen  they  were  too  much  like  grooms. 
He  had  an  amusing  account  to  give  of  a  visit  he  once  paid 
to  a  Russian  country  house.  "Card-playing,  eating  and 
drinking — and  more  especially  the  latter,"  he  related— 
"went  on  all  day  and  nearly  all  night.  I  never  could  under- 
stand where  my  bedroom  was,  for  the  excellent  reason,  as  I 
at  length  discovered,  that  I  had  n't  one.  At  a  late  hour  I 
saw  several  of  the  guests  heaping  up  in  corners  cushions 
which  they  had  taken  from  sofas,  to  serve  as  beds,  so  I 
followed  their  example.  When  I  woke  up  in  the  morning 
I  could  not  see  any  apparatus  to  wash  in,  so  I  filled  a  china 
bowl  with  water,  and,  having  dried  myself  with  a  table- 
cloth which  I  found  in  an  adjoining  room,  I  dressed. "  He 


1864]  TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY  57 

gave  a  charming  thumb-nail  sketch  of  a  Russian  drawing- 
room,  a  propos  of  a  visit  of  Mr.  Augustus  Lumley  to  the 
Russian  capital.  Mr.  Lumley  was  a  famous  cotillon  leader. 
"I  was  at  St.  Petersburg  when  Mr.  Lumley  arrived  on  a 
visit.  He  was  solemnly  introduced  to  the  Russian  leader  of 
cotillons,  who  is  invariably  an  officer  of  distinction,  as  a 
colleague.  It  was  like  the  meeting  between  two  famous 
generals,  and  reminded  me  of  the  pictures  of  Wellington  and 
Blucher  on  the  field  of  Waterloo.  It  took  place  at  a  ball, 
and  the  Russian,  with  chivalrous  courtesy,  offered  to  surren- 
der to  his  English  colleague  the  direction  of  the  cotillon." 

The  Emperor  of  Russia1  once  stood  beside  Henry 
Labouchere  whilst  he  was  playing  at  6cart6  to  watch  his 
game.  The  occasion  was  a  ball  given  by  the  Empress  to  the 
Emperor  on  his  birthday.  Labouchere  and  his  adversary 
were  both  at  four,  and  it  was  Labouchere's  deal.  "Now," 
said  the  Emperor,  "let  us  see  whether  you  can  turn  up  the 
king. "  Labouchere  dealt,  and  then  held  out  the  turn-up 
card,  observing:  "Your  orders  have  been  obeyed,  sir."  The 
Emperor  asked  him,  as  often  as  a  dozen  times  subsequently, 
how  he  had  managed  it,  and  never  could  be  persuaded  that 
it  was  a  mere  coincidence,  and  that  the  young  attach^  had 
taken  the  chance  of  the  card  being  a  king.  It  was  a  trifling 
example  of  the  luck,  or  its  reverse,  that  seemed  to  be  for 
ever  crossing  and  recrossing  Labouchere's  path,  in  spite  of  his 
own  belief  in  nothing  but  the  logical  sequence  of  events. 

A  popular  anecdote  of  his  Petersburg  days  is  the  follow- 
ing: A  fussy  German  nobleman  pushed  his  way  into  the 
Chancellerie,  where  Labouchere  was  working,  asking  to  see 
the  Ambassador.  "Please  take  a  chair,"  said  the  secretary; 
"he  will  be  here  soon."  "But,  young  man,"  blustered  the 
German,  "do  you  know  who  I  am?"  And  he  poured  out  a 
string  of  imposing  titles.  Labouchere  looked  up  in  well- 
simulated  awe.  "Pray  take  two  chairs,"  he  remarked 
quietly,  and  went  on  writing. 

1  Alexander  II. 


58  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1853- 

When  Khalil  Pasha  was  recalled  from  being  Ambassador 
in  Paris,  Labouchere  published  the  following  reminiscence  of 
his  year  in  the  Russian  capital:  "Khalil  Pasha  once  saved 
me  from  a  heavy  loss,  and  that  is  why  I  take  an  interest  in 
him.  He,  a  Russian,  and  I  sat  down  one  evening  to  have  a 
quiet  rubber.  The  Russians  have  a  hideous  device  of  playing 
with  what  they  call  a  zero;  that  is  to  say,  a  zero  is  added  to 
all  winnings  and  losses,  so  that  10  stands  for  100,  etc.  When 
Khalil  and  the  Russians  had  won  their  dummies,  I  found  to 
my  horror  that,  with  the  zero,  I  had  lost  about  £4000. 
Then  it  came  to  my  turn  to  take  dummy.  I  had  won  a  game, 
and  we  were  playing  for  the  odd  trick  in  the  last  game.  If  I 
failed  to  win  it  I  should  lose  about  £8000.  Only  two  cards 
remained  in  hand.  I  had  marked  up  six  tricks  and  my 
opponents  five.  Khalil  had  the  lead;  he  had  the  best  trump 
and  a  thirteenth  card.  The  only  other  trump  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  dummy.  He  had,  therefore,  only  to  play  his 
trump  and  then  the  thirteenth  card  to  win  the  rubber,  when 
he  let  drop  the  latter  card,  for  his  fingers  were  of  a  very 
'thumby'  description.  Before  he  could  take  it  up  I 
pushed  the  dummy's  trump  on  it  and  claimed  the  trick. 
The  Russian  howled,  Khalil  howled ;  they  said  this  was  very- 
sharp  practice.  I  replied  that  whist  is  essentially  a  game 
of  sharp  practice,  and  that  I  was  acting  in  accordance  with 
the  rules.  The  lookers-on  were  appealed  to,  and,  of  course, 
gave  it  in  my  favour.  Thus  did  I  make,  or  rather  save, 
£8000  against  Russia  and  Turkey  in  alliance,  through  the 
fault  of  the  Turk;  and  it  seems  to  me  that  the  poor  Ottoman, 
now  that  he  is  at  war  (1877)  with  his  ally  of  the  card- table, 
is  losing  the  game,  much  as  Khalil  lost  his  game  of  whist  to 
me.  To  have  good  cards  is  one  thing,  to  know  how  to  make 
use  of  them  quite  another. " x 

Labouchere  used  to  tell  a  good  story  of  how  he  got  at  the 
secrets  of  the  Russian  Government.  His  laundress  was  a 
handsome  woman,  and  having  made  friends  with  her  on 

1  Truth,  July  16,  1877. 


1864]  TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY  59 

other  than  professional  grounds,  she  happened  to  mention 
that  her  husband  was  a  compositor  in  the  government 
printing  office.  The  minutes  of  the  Cabinet  councils  were 
printed  in  French,  of  which  the  printers,  of  course,  under- 
stood nothing.  Labouchere  persuaded  her,  for  a  considera- 
tion, to  obtain  from  her  husband  the  loose  sheets  from  which 
the  minutes  had  been  printed.  They  were  brought  to  him 
by  the  faithful  woman  every  week,  concealed  among  his 
starched  shirts  and  collars.  As  soon  as  Lord  John  Russell 
discovered  the  source  of  the  interesting  information  that 
reached  him  from  Petersburg,  he  put  a  stop  to  the  simple 
intrigue.  Labouchere  would  always  wind  up  his  narrative 
of  this  episode  with  the  words:  "For  what  reason,  I  wonder, 
did  Russell  imagine  diplomacy  was  invented?" 

After  Petersburg,  Dresden  was  Labouchere's  next 
appointment.  He  had  previously  assiduously  studied  the 
German  language,  in  which,  being  a  born  linguist,  he  was 
remarkably  proficient.  He  had  been  for  a  time  to  Marburg 
to  reside  in  a  German  family  for  the  purpose  of  acquiring 
conversational  fluency.  All  through  his  life  one  of  his  fads 
consisted  in  working  out  on  how  small  an  income  an  eco- 
nomical family  might  live  in  comfort,  and  he  used  frequently 
to  commend  the  management  of  means  practised  in  the 
bourgeois  family  at  Marburg  where  he  boarded.  It  con- 
sisted of  a  mother,  two  daughters,  a  father,  and  an  element- 
ary maid-of-all-work.  The  daughters  did  the  housework 
alternately.  The  daughter,  whose  turn  it  was  to  be  the 
young  lady,  used  to  dress  herself  gorgeously  every  afternoon 
and  evening,  receiving  visitors  or  paying  calls.  She  would 
play  Chopin  and  Beethoven  on  the  pianoforte,  and  make 
herself  an  exceedingly  agreeable  social  personage.  The 
following  week  she  would  retire  to  the  domestic  regions  and 
be  an  excellent  servant,  while  her  sister  took  her  turn  as 
femme  du  monde.  Occasionally  the  whole  family,  including 
Labouchere,  would  be  invited  to  a  party.  It  was  the  custom 
on  such  occasions  for  both  the  daughters  to  be  "young 


60  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1853- 

ladies."  The  maid-of -all-work  would  accompany  them  to 
the  neighbour's  house  whither  they  had  been  bidden,  carry- 
ing their  suppers  in  paper  bags — for  the  hospitality  proffered 
at  Marburg  was  intellectual,  not  material.  All  the  guests 
brought  similar  paper  bags,  and  at  the  conclusion  of  the 
repast  the  remains  of  the  various  meals  were  carefully  col- 
lected by  their  respective  owners,  and  carried  home  to  figure 
at  the  next  day's  mittagessen.  Labouchere  used  often  to 
assert  that  the  evening  parties  at  Marburg  were  the  most 
delightful  and  amusing  ones  he  ever  attended.  While  there 
he  frequented  the  hospital,  and  attended  the  lectures  given 
for  the  instruction  of  the  medical  students.  He  was  always 
fond  of  developing  extraordinary  theories  on  the  subject  of 
medical  science,  more  remarkable  for  their  originality  than 
for  their  probable  ultimate  utility.  The  authority  upon 
which  these  theories  would  be  based  was  invariably  that  of 
the  lecturer  at  the  Marburg  Hospital.  Even  as  late  as  1905, 
Mr.  Labouchere  still  remembered  his  medical  student  days. 
He  wrote  to  one  of  his  sisters  in  that  year  on  the  occasion  of 
her  son  becoming  a  doctor:  "A  doctor  is  a  good  profession. 
I  learnt  doctoring  at  Marburg  in  order  to  learn  German. 
I  rather  liked  it,  and  have  vainly  offered  to  doctor  people 
gratis  since  then,  but  no  one  seems  inclined." 

Between  his  diplomatic  appointments  at  Frankfort  and 
Petersburg,  Labouchere  spent  several  months  at  Florence, 
and  he  described  in  Truth  how  it  was  that  he  came  to  have  a 
year's  free  time  on  his  hands:  " Once  did  I  get  the  better  of 
the  Foreign  Office.  I  was  on  leave  in  Italy  when  I  received 
a  notification  that  Her  Majesty  had  kindly  thought  fit  to 
appoint  me  Secretary  of  Legation  to  the  Republic  of  Parana. 
I  had  never  heard  of  this  republic.  After  diligent  inquiry, 
I  learnt  that  Parana  was  a  sort  of  Federal  town  on  the  River 
Plate,  but  that  a  few  months  previously  the  republic  of  that 
name  had  shared  the  fate  of  the  Kilkenny  cats.  So  I 
remained  in  Italy,  and  comfortably  drew  my  salary  like  a 
bishop  of  a  see  in  partibus  infidelium.  A  year  later  came  a 


1864]  TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY  61 

despatch  couched  in  language  more  remarkable  for  its 
strength  than  its  civility,  asking  me  what  I  meant  by  not 
proceeding  to  my  post.  I  replied  that  I  had  passed  the 
twelve  months  in  making  diligent  inquiries  respecting  the 
whereabouts  of  the  Republic  of  Parana,  hitherto  without 
success,  but  if  his  lordship  would  kindly  inform  me  where  it 
was,  I  need  hardly  say  that  I  would  hasten  there! " x 

While  in  Florence  Labouchere  witnessed  the  revolution 
which  deposed  the  Grand  Duke  and  provided  Tuscany  with 
a  provisional  government  of  her  own  choice,  preparatory  to 
the  union  of  all  the  Italian  States  under  the  King  of  Sardinia. 
He  was  a  personal  friend  of  Mr.  (afterwards  Sir)  James 
Hudson,  the  English  Minister  at  Turin,  whose  Nationalist 
sympathies,  like  Labouchere's,  were  well  known,  and  he  was 
an  invaluable  reporter  to  the  Liberals  in  Turin  of  the  news 
of  the  struggle  for  liberty  in  Tuscany.  On  the  morning  of 
the  revolution,  after  the  Grand  Duke  and  his  family  had 
left  the  Pitti  Palace,  he,  with  many  of  his  revolutionary 
friends,  entered  the  forsaken  home  of  Austrian  royalty,  and 
had  the  astuteness  to  procure  on  the  spot  what  was  left  of 
the  famous  Metternich  Johannisberger  for  the  newly  founded 
Unione  Club,  of  which  he  was  a  member.  He  had  an  amus- 
ing story  to  tell  about  the  flight  of  the  grand-ducal  family 
from  the  City  of  Flowers,  which  is  best  repeated  in  his  own 
words,  as  he  used  to  relate  it  to  his  Florentine  friends  after 
he  had  returned  to  end  his  days  in  the  place  which  he  had 
loved  so  well  in  his  youth.  "The  news  was  brought  back 
here  by  some  of  the  people  who  had  seen  them  off  the 
premises,  that,  on  the  road  to  Bologna,  they  all  got  out  and 
stopped  an  hour  or  two  at  an  inn,  where  they  all  sat  in  a  row 
crying.  After  this  had  gone  on  for  some  time,  it  was  dis- 
covered that  the  whole  party  had  forgotten  their  pocket- 
handkerchiefs.  Fortunately  the  Grand  Duchess  had  on  a 
white  petticoat  with  very  ample  frills,  so  she  went  round  to 
each  of  the  grand-ducal  family  in  turn,  and  wiped  their 

•  Truth,  May  23,  1878. 


62  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1853- 

eyes  and  noses  for  them  in  the  frills  of  her  petticoat.  And 
then  she  did  the  same  for  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  in 
waiting. " 

"Do  I  think  that  incident  really  is  true?"  he  would  reply 
to  his  incredulous  audience,  "probably  not.  But  from  what 
I  know  of  royalties  in  general,  and  from  what  I  remember 
about  the  grand-ducal  family  of  Tuscany  in  particular,  I 
think  that  it  is  exceedingly  probable  that  they  would  start 
out  on  an  expedition  of  that  kind  without  a  pocket-hand- 
kerchief between  them."1  His  personal  reminiscences  of 
Victor  Emmanuel  II.  and  of  Cavour  were  of  the  raciest 
description  and  would  enthral  his  hearers  by  the  hour,  told 
as  only  he  could  tell  them,  with  all  the  decorative  touches  of 
local  colour  and  local  dialect. 

He  was  also  very  fond  of  telling  a  story  about  an  out- 
rageous compliment  he  paid  to  a  lady  belonging  to  the  Court 
of  the  Grand  Duchess,  which,  if  true,  showed  that  at  least 
one  of  the  resolutions  he  had  made  in  the  inn  at  Quotla  di 
Amalpas  had  been  carried  into  successful  practice:  "The 
Grand  Duchess  of  Tuscany  had  a  venerable  maid  of  honour 
above  seventy  years  of  age.  She  had  piercing  black  eyes, 
and  looked  like  an  old  postchaise,  painted  up  and  with  new 
lamps.  'How  old  do  you  think  I  am?'  she  once  asked  me, 
with  a  simpering  smile  that  caused  my  blood  to  run  cold. 
I  hesitated,  and  then  said  'Twenty.'  'Flatterer,'  she 
replied,  tapping  me  with  her  fan,  '  I  am  twenty -five. ' 

Having  become  third  secretary  in  November,  i862,Labou- 
chere  was  appointed  to  Constantinople.  He  wrote  in  Truth 
nearly  thirty  years  later:  "I  was  once  Secretary  of  Embassy 
at  Constantinople  and  I  passed  my  time  reading  up  Lord 
Stratford's  despatches  before  and  during  the  Crimean  War. 
No  one  could  have  recognised  them  as  the  originals  from 
which  Mr.  Kinglake  drew  his  material  for  a  narrative  of  the 
Ambassador's  diplomatic  action.  The  fact  was  that  Lord 
Stratford  was  one  of  the  most  detestable  of  the  human  race. 

1  Florence  Herald,  Dec.  28,  1909. 


1864]  TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY  63 

He  was  arrogant,  resentful,  and  spiteful.  He  hated  the 
Emperor  Nicholas  because  he  had  declined  to  receive  him 
as  Ambassador  to  Russia,  and  the  Crimean  War  was  his 
revenge.  In  every  way  he  endeavoured  to  envenom  the 
quarrel  and  to  make  war  certain.  His  power  at  Constanti- 
nople was  enormous.  This  was  because,  whilst  the  Ambassa- 
dors of  other  Powers  changed,  his  stay  there  seemed  eternal. 
A  Grand  Vizier,  or  a  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  knew  that, 
if  he  offended  the  English  Ambassador,  he  would  never 
cease  plotting  to  drive  him  out,  and  to  keep  him  out  of  power. 
He  therefore  thought  it  better  to  keep  on  good  terms  with 
him  and  to  submit  to  his  arrogance.  But  Lord  Stratford 
never  used  his  power  for  good.  It  was  enough  for  him  to  get 
the  Sultan  to  publish  a  decree.  This  he  would  send  home  as 
evidence  of  good  government.  He  never,  however,  explained 
that  the  decree,  when  published,  remained  a  dead  letter. 
When  Sir  Henry  Bulwer  (Lord  Balling)  was  sent  as  Com- 
missioner to  the  Principalities,  he  passed  a  considerable  time 
(as  indeed  was  necessary)  at  Constantinople.  Lord  Stratford 
knew  that  Sir  Henry  wanted  to  replace  him,  and  he  feared 
that  he  would  succeed  in  doing  so.  His  rage  and  indignation 
were  therefore  unbounded.  One  day  the  Ambassador  and  the 
Commissioner  were  together  at  the  Embassy.  'I  know,' 
said  the  Ambassador,  '  that  you  are  trying  to  get  my  place,' 
and  he  shook  his  fist  in  the  face  of  Sir  Henry,  who  mildly 
surveyed  him  and  shrugged  his  shoulders. " 

Sir  Horace  Rumbold  writes  charmingly  of  Henry  Labou- 
chere  at  Constantinople  in  1863.  "In  August,"  he  says, 
44  the  torrid  heat  drove  me  to  seek  for  a  while  the  cool  breezes 
of  the  Bosphorus,  and  I  then,  for  the  first  time,  became 
acquainted  with  the  wonders  of  Constantinople.  Here  I 
found  at  the  Embassy  Edward  Herbert  and  got  to  know  that 
remarkable,  original,  and  most  talented  and  kind-hearted 
of  would-be  cynics,  Henry  Labouchere. " f  Later  on,  in  the 
same  volume  of  reminiscences,  he  gives  another  picture  of 

1  Rumbold,  Recollections  of  a  Diplomatist,  vol.  ii. 


64  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1853- 

the  young  secretary,  whose  diplomatic  career  was,  however, 
soon  to  come  to  a  close.  "The  Pisani  dynasty  were  still 
masters  of  the  situation  when  I  arrived.  Under  the,  in 
many  ways,  unfortunate  tenure  of  the  Embassy  by  Sir 
Henry  Bulwer,  Alexander  Pisani,  best  known  as  the  'Count,' 
who  was  simply  the  Keeper  of  the  Archives,  had  been  made 
head  of  the  Diplomatic  Chancellerie  of  the  Embassy,  to  the 
intense  disgust  of  successive  secretaries  properly  belonging  to 
the  Service.  Pisani,  it  was  said,  had  extorted  this  abnormal 
appointment  from  his  chief  by  threatening  to  resign  and 
write  his  memoirs.  Henry  Labouchere,  among  others, 
greatly  resented  the  arrangement.  Some  years  before,  he 
had  a  passage  of  arms  with  the  'Count,'  who  had  reproved 
him,  so  to  speak,  officially  for  absenting  himself  for  the  day 
from  the  Chancery  on  some  occasion,  without  applying  to 
him  for  leave  to  do  so.  The  ridiculous  affair  was  referred 
to  Sir  Henry  Bulwer,  and  gave  my  friend  Labby  a  charming 
opportunity  of  describing  the  'Count'  in  a  formal  letter  to 
the  Ambassador.  'It  seems  to  me,'  he  wrote,  'a  singular 
dispensation  that  places  a  Greek  nobleman  of  Venetian 
extraction,  who  profited  by  the  advantages  of  a  Pera  educa- 
tion, in  authority  over  a  body  of  English  Gentlemen.' " 

Mr.  Labouchere  was  always  very  amusing  on  the  subject 
of  his  chief  at  Constantinople.  He  said  that  Lord  Balling 
could  not  understand  the  value  of  money.  He  was  so 
generous  that  he  was  always  in  financial  difficulties.  At  one 
time  the  Embassy  was  reduced  to  such  straits  that  there  was 
no  money  to  buy  any  decent  wine.  The  difficulty  was  met 
in  the  following  manner:  At  official  dinners  the  grand-look- 
ing matire  d'hotel  would  solemnly  say  before  pouring  out  the 
wine,  "Chateau  Lafitte  '48,"  or  "La  Rose  '52,"  and  so  on, 
all  through  dinner.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  wine  had  really 
come  from  the  neighbouring  Greek  isles,  and  had  been 
doctored  with  an  infusion  of  prunes  to  tone  down  the  flavour 
of  tar,  which  is  inseparable  from  these  insular  vintages. 
Lord  Balling  himself  was  so  anxious  to  please  that  he  would 


1864]  TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY  65 

quaff  glass  after  glass  of  the  horrible  beverage,  swallowing 
numberless  pills  the  while  as  an  antidote. 

There  are  many  versions  of  the  incident  with  which 
Labouchere  chose  to  conclude  his  relations  with  the  Diplo- 
matic Service.  The  Foreign  Office  records  of  the  date  are 
not  yet  available,  but  I  am  indebted  to  Sir  Audley  Gosling 
for  his  recollections  of  the  affair  as  it  happened.  In  the 
summer  of  1864,  Labouchere  found  himself  at  Baden-Baden, 
enjoying  the  relaxation  of  a  little  gambling  after  his  strenuous 
work  in  the  service  of  his  country.  While  there  he  received 
from  Lord  Russell,  the  Foreign  Secretary,  the  usual  stereo- 
typed announcement  of  his  promotion  in  the  Diplomatic 
Service.  It  ran:  "I  have  to  inform  you  that  Her  Majesty 
has,  on  my  recommendation,  been  pleased  to  promote  you 
to  be  a  Second  Secretary  in  the  Diplomatic  Service  to  reside 
at  Buenos  Ayres. " 

Labouchere  is  said  to  have  replied  as  follows:  "I  have 
the  honour  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your  Lordship's 
despatch,  informing  me  of  my  promotion  as  Second  Secretary 
to  Her  Majesty's  Legation  at  Buenos  Ayres.  I  beg  to  state 
that,  if  residing  at  Baden-Baden  I  can  fulfil  those  duties,  I 
shall  be  pleased  to  accept  the  appointment. "  As  this  was 
the  second  joke  he  had  played  on  Lord  Russell,  he  was 
politely  told  that  there  was  no  further  use  for  his  services. x 

A  successful  "system"  is  not  an  essential  part  of  the 
educational  equipment  of  a  diplomat,  but  it  may  on  occasion 
be  a  very  useful  extra  to  his  other  accomplishments.  Mr 
Labouchere  found  it  so.  " I  used  at  one  time, "  he  said,  "to 
take  the  waters  every  year  at  Homburg,  and  I  invariably 
paid  the  expenses  of  my  trip  out  of  my  winnings  at  the 
gambling-tables:  It  may  have  been  luck,  or  it  may  have 
been  system;  but  I  give  my  system  for  what  it  is  worth.  I 

1  The  letter,  signed  by  Lord  Russell,  appointing  Henry  Labouchere  Second 
Secretary  is  dated  February  3,  1863,  so  that  the  one,  referred  to  by  Sir  Audley 
Gosling,  appointing  him  to  Buenos  Ayres,  must  have  been  of  later  date.  The 
latter  is  not  in  my  possession. 

5 


66  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1853- 

used  to  write  the  following  figures  on  a  piece  of  paper:  3,  4, 
5,  6,  7.  My  stake  was  always  the  top  and  bottom  figure 
added  together.  If  I  won,  I  scratched  out  these  figures ;  if  I 
lost,  I  wrote  down  the  stake  at  the  bottom  of  the  figures,  and 
I  went  on  playing  until  all  the  figures  on  my  piece  of  paper 
were  erased.  Thus  my  first  stake  (and  I  played  indifferently 
on  red  or  black)  would  be  ten.  If  I  won  it,  I  scratched  out 
three  and  seven.  My  next  stake  would  be  ten  again,  as  four 
and  six  make  ten.  If  I  lost  it,  I  wrote  down  ten  at  the  bottom 
of  my  list  of  figures,  and  played  fourteen,  being  the  addition 
of  the  first  and  last  figure  on  the  list,  viz.  fourteen.  The 
basis  of  the  'system*  was  this.  Before  reaching  the  maxi- 
mum, I  could  play  a  series  of  even  chances  for  about  two 
hours,  and  if  during  these  two  hours  I  won  one  quarter  as 
many  times  as  the  bank,  plus  five,  all  my  figures  were 
erased.  During  these  two  hours  an  even  chance  would  be 
produced  two  hundred  times.  If,  therefore,  I  won  fifty-five 
times,  and  the  bank  won  one  hundred  and  forty-five  times, 
I  was  the  winner  of  twenty-five  napoleons,  florins,  or  what- 
ever was  my  unit.  Now  let  any  one  produce  an  even  chance 
by  tossing  up  a  coin  and  always  crying  '  heads, '  he  will  find 
that  he  may  go  on  until  Doomsday  before  the  '  tails '  exceed 
the  'heads,'  or  the  'heads'  exceed  the  'tails,'  by  ninety- 
five.  I  found  this  system  in  a  letter  from  Condorcet  to  a 
friend,  which  I  read  in  a  book  that  I  purchased  at  a  stall  on 
the  'Quai'  at  Paris.  It  may  have  been,  as  I  have  said, 
only  luck;  but  all  I  can  say  is,  that  whenever  I  played  it  I 
invariably  won. " 

One  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  oldest  friends,  Mrs.  Crawford, 
recently  wrote  to  me  a  letter  in  which  she  made  the  following 
lucid  remarks  about  his  career  in  the  Diplomatic  Service: 
"I  was  acquainted,"  she  says,  "with  many  of  his  diplomatic 
comrades,  and  they  often  spoke  of  him  in  chat  with  me. 
Some  were  friendly,  some  were  not.  He  had  a  very  un- 
guarded tongue,  and  discharged  his  shafts  of  satire,  irony, 
humour  in  all  directions,  and  every  arrow  that  hit  made  an 


1864]  TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY  67 

enemy.  I,  mentally,  used  to  take  this  into  account  in 
judging  of  their  judgments,  and  the  habit,  which  does  not 
exist  in  England,  of  searching  for  mitigating  circumstances 
helped  me  to  make  a  fair  and  true  estimate  of  his  complex 
nature.  I  think  he  rather  enjoyed,  but  passag&rement,  being 
thought  a  Richard  III.,  an  lago — an  inveterate  gambler.  I 
soon  came  to  the  conclusion  that  this  was  partly  due  to  a 
reaction  against  the  idolatrous  attitude  of  the  English  middle 
class  and  religious  people  towards  Victoria  and  Albert,  for 
it  was  shockingly  fulsome — and  the  Queen  early  showed 
hostility  towards  him.  His  uncle,  Lord  Taunton,  reflected 
her  known  sentiments,  and  so  did  Lord  Clarendon.  He  was 
wrong,  very  wrong,  to  have  treated  the  vile  crime  of  Gren- 
ville  Murray,  and  committed  too  in  an  Office  capacity,  as 
a  thing  of  no  consequence  and  the  stumble  made  by  an  ex- 
ceedingly clever  man — a  too  great  rarity  in  the  British 
Consular  Service.  I  have  some  recollection  that  she  was 
furious  with  the  Prince  of  Wales,  who  had  not  the  virtue, 
in  his  early  years  at  any  rate,  of  reticence  in  speaking, 
for,  on  the  authority  of  Mr.  Labouchere,  taking  Grenville 
Murray's  part  against  the  Foreign  Office  in  her  presence. 
This,  however,  was  only  one  of  the  reasons  of  her  fixed 
hostility.  ..." 

The  crime  to  which  Mrs.  Crawford  refers  as  having  been 
committed  by  Grenville  Murray  in  an  official  capacity  was 
that  of  forwarding  private  news  to  the  Morning  Post  (to  which 
paper  he  was  secretly  acting  as  correspondent)  in  the  Foreign 
Office  bag  from  Vienna,  where  he  was  an  attach^  in  1852, 
under  Lord  Westmorland.  Mr.  Labouchere  declared  in 
Truth  that  Lord  Palmerston,  having  a  private  grudge  against 
Prince  Schwarzenberg,  the  Prime  Minister  of  Austria,  and 
wishing  for  special  information  about  him  to  reach  the 
British  public,  had  come  to  a  private  understanding  with 
Grenville  Murray  that  his  journalistic  correspondence  would 
be  winked  at.  Unfortunately  the  "copy"  fell  into  the 
hands  of  Lord  Westmorland,  who  demanded  from  Lord 


68  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1853- 

Palmerston  the  instant  dismissal  of  Murray.  Murray  was 
not  dismissed,  but  in  a  year's  time  was  transferred  to  Con- 
stantinople, where  Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe  reigned 
supreme.  He  had,  of  course,  heard  from  Lord  Westmorland 
about  Murray's  journalistic  indiscretions,  and  hated  him 
accordingly.  Murray  retorted  by  holding  up  his  chief  to 
every  sort  of  ridicule  to  the  English  magazine-reading  public  ; 
for  he  was  a  clever  writer,  and  contributed  largely  to  House- 
hold Words,  then  under  the  editorship  of  Charles  Dickens. 
The  Foreign  Office  soon  thought  it  necessary  to  remove  him, 
and  he  was  appointed  to  the  consul-generalship  of  Odessa. 
At  Odessa  the  consul  was  just  as  unpopular  as  the  attache 
had  been  at  Vienna  and  Constantinople.  The  defence  of 
Grenville  Murray,  to  which  Mrs.  Crawford  refers,  was 
probably  founded  upon  facts  contained  in  the  following 
passage  of  an  "Anecdotal  Photograph"  of  Lord  Derby,  pub- 
lished by  Mr.  Labouchere  in  an  early  number  of  Truth: 

When  Lord  Derby  was  at  the  head  of  the  Foreign  Office,  he 
left  all  the  appointments  in  the  Diplomatic  Service  to  the  per- 
manent officials,  and,  owing  to  this  pococurantism,  he  did  an 
act  of  injustice  to  one  of  the  most  brilliant  litterateurs  of  the  day. 
The  gentleman  in  question  had  a  consulship  in  the  East.  An  able 
and  brilliant  man,  he  was  naturally  a  persona  ingrata  to  the  high 
priests  of  red  tape,  and  between  them  and  him  there  was  per- 
petual war,  which  at  length  culminated  in  a  determination  to 
remove  him  per  fas  or  per  nefas  from  the  service.  Certain 
charges  were  accordingly  brought  against  this  gentleman,  who 
was  put  on  his  defence.  The  accused,  who  was  then  in  London, 
applied  for  copies  of  certain  papers  from  the  archives  of  the 
Foreign  Office  which  he  considered  essential  to  his  complete 
exculpation.  The  officials  at  first  declined  to  grant  them,  but, 
after  a  long  correspondence,  admitted  the  justice  of  the  claim. 
The  papers  were  sent  accordingly,  together  with  two  separate 
letters,  both  bearing  the  same  date.  One  announced  that  the 
documents  had  been  forwarded,  the  other  that  Lord  Derby  had 
made  up  his  mind  on  the  whole  case,  and  his  decision  was  in  these 
words:  "I  have  accordingly  advised  the  Queen  to  cancel  your 


1864]  TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY  69 

commission  as ,  and  it  is  hereby  cancelled  accordingly." 

The  recipient  of  this  interesting  epistle  was  at  first  inclined  to 
treat  it  as  a  bad  joke,  but  soon  found  that  it  was  an  authentic 
fact.1 

I  have  the  great  good  fortune  also  to  have  received  from 
Mr.  Wilfrid  Blunt  a  brief  memoir  of  Mr.  Labouchere,  which 
commences  in  his  early  diplomatic  days,  and  though  it  carries 
us  on  almost  to  the  end  of  his  life,  I  think  that  its  publication 
here  will  enable  those  readers  who  did  not  know  Mr.  Labou- 
chere personally  to  get  a  sincere  impression  of  the  whole  of  his 
career,  which  cannot  fail  to  be  of  assistance  to  them  in 
elucidating  his  curious  original  personality  from  the  maze  of 
dates  and  details  which  are  the  inevitable  appendages  of  a 
comprehensive  biography.  Mr.  Blunt  writes  as  follows: 

Feb.  13, 1913. 

My  acquaintance  with  Henry  Labouchere  dates,  if  I  re- 
member rightly,  from  the  early  spring  of  1861.  We  were 
both  then  in  the  Diplomatic  Service,  and  though  not  actually 
employed  together,  I  had  just  succeeded  him  as  unpaid  at- 
tach6  at  the  Frankfort  Legation,  and  found  him  still  lingering 
there  when  I  came  to  take  up  my  not  very  onerous  duties 
that  year  under  our  chief,  Sir  Alexander  Malet,  Edward  Malet's 
father.  Labouchere's  attraction  to  Frankfort  was  not  Frank- 
fort itself,  but  its  close  neighbourhood  to  Hombourg,  where  the 
gambling-tables  still  flourished,  and  where  he  spent  nearly  all 
his  time.  By  rights  he  ought  to  have  been  at  St.  Petersburg, 
but  pretended  that  he  could  not  afford  to  travel  to  his  new  post 
except  on  foot,  and  so  was  staying  on  waiting  to  have  his  expenses 
paid  by  Government.  His  life  at  that  time  was  an  avowedly 
disreputable  one,  the  society  of  Hombourg  being  what  it  was; 
and  he  was  looked  upon  by  the  more  strait-laced  ladies  of  the 
Corps  Diplomatique  as  something  of  a  pariah.  There  was  a 
good  deal  of  talk  about  him,  opinions  being  divided  as  to  whether 
he  was  more  knave  or  fool,  greenhorn  or  knowing  fellow,  all 
which  amused  him  greatly.  He  was  in  reality  the  good-hearted 

1  Truth,  Nov.  20,  1879. 


yo  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1853- 

cynic  the  world  has  since  acknowledged  him  to  be,  with  a  keen 
appreciation  of  the  comedie  humaine,  a  contempt  for  aristocratic 
shams,  and  a  philosopher's  taste  for  low  society. 

I  have  a  coloured  caricature  I  made  of  him  of  that  date,  1 86 1 , 
in  which  he  is  represented  as  undergoing  a  conversion  to  re- 
spectability at  the  hands  of  Countess  d'Usedom,  the  Olympia  of 
the  Bismarck  memoirs,  and  wife  of  the  Prussian  Ambassador, 
with  her  two  Scotch  nieces  in  the  preposterous  crinoline  dresses 
of  the  time.  He  figures  in  it  as  a  round-faced  young  man  with 
highly  coloured  cheeks,  and  an  air  of  mock  modesty  which  is  very 
characteristic.  It  is  labelled  "The  Deformed  Transformed." 

Later,  I  used  to  see  him  pretty  frequently  in  London  at  the 
St.  James'  Club,  of  which  we  were  both  members.  He  was 
already  beginning  to  be  a  recognised  wit,  and  a  central  figure 
among  talkers  in  the  smoking-room.  But  I  remember  old 
Paddy  Green  of  Evans'  still  maintaining  that  he  was  for  all  that 
a  simple-minded  fellow,  made  to  be  the  prey  of  rogues.  It  was 
as  such  that  he  had  known  him  some  years  before  when  Labou- 
chere  first  appeared  in  London  life  and  took  up  his  quarters 
at  Evans'  Hotel  in  Covent  Garden.  The  good  Irishman  had 
dolorous  stories  of  the  way  in  which  his  prote"g6  had  then  been 
fleeced.  "Poor  Labouchere,  poor  Labouchere,"  he  used  to  say, 
in  his  paternally  emotional  voice;  "a  good  young  man,  but 
always  his  own  worst  enemy."  His  own  worst  enemy  he  cer- 
tainly often  was.  I  remember  his  coming  into  the  Club  one 
evening,  it  must  have  been  in  1865,  when  he  had  just  been  elected 
M.P.  for  Windsor,  and  boasting  to  all  of  us  who  would  listen  to 
him,  with  every  detail,  how  he  had  bribed  the  free  and  intelligent 
electors  of  the  Royal  Borough,  an  imprudence  which  caused  him 
the  misfortune  of  his  being  unseated  immediately  afterwards  on 
petition. 

Of  the  years  that  followed,  when  he  was  making  his  name  as 
a  journalist,  and  his  fortune  on  the  Stock  Exchange,  I  have 
nothing  particular  to  record.  I  came  once  more  into  close  con- 
nection with  him  in  1882,  at  the  time  of  the  trial  of  Arabi  at 
Cairo  after  Tel-el-Kebir.  Labouchere,  during  the  early  months 
of  the  year,  had  been  among  those  Radicals  who  in  the  House  of 
Commons  had  followed  Chamberlain  and  Dilke  in  pressing 
intervention  in  Egypt  on  the  Foreign  Office,  and  he  made  no 


1864]  TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY  71 

secret  of  the  reason — he  was  a  holder  of  Egyptian  Bonds.  The 
bombardment  of  Alexandria  and  the  massacre  of  Tel-el-Kebir, 
with  the  revelations  which  followed  of  the  intrigues  which  had 
caused  the  war,  proved,  however,  too  much  for  his  political  con- 
science, which  was  really  sound,  and  having  unloaded  his  Egyp- 
tian stock,  which  had  gone  up  to  higher  prices  (for  he  was  not  a 
man  to  neglect  a  Stock  Exchange  opportunity),  he  frankly  re- 
pented of  his  sin,  and  from  that  time  onwards  did  his  best  to  repair 
the  wrong  to  Egypt  he  had  joined  in  doing.  He  subscribed  hand- 
somely to  the  "Arabi  Defence  Fund,"  was  always  ready  to  ask 
questions  in  the  House,  and  did  not  scruple  to  reproach  the  Grand 
Old  Man  with  his  lapses  at  Cairo  and  in  the  Soudan  from  his 
Midlothian  principles.  In  this  connection  I  saw  much  of  him 
from  1883  to  1885,  years  during  which  Egypt  occupied  so  large 
a  share  of  public  attention,  and  always  found  him  interested  in 
the  Egyptian  cause  and  helpful. 

He  was  living  then  in  Queen  Anne's  Gate,  and  I  aras  pretty 
sure  to  find  him  in  the  morning,  and  often  stayed  to  lunch  with 
him  and  his  wife.  He  was  uniformly  gay  and  pleasant  and  ready 
to  give  news.  No  one  ever  was  more  generous  in  sharing  his 
political  knowledge  with  his  friends,  and  I  could  count  on  him  to 
tell  me  the  true  and  exact  truth  of  what  was  going  on  in  the 
directions  that  interested  me,  without  regard  to  the  rules  of 
secrecy  so  many  public  men  affect.  Of  his  wit  too  he  was  copi- 
ously lavish,  as  only  those  are  who  have  it  in  supreme  abundance, 
giving  of  his  very  best  to  a  single  listener  as  freely  as  to  a  larger 
audience.  This,  I  always  think,  is  the  test  of  genius  in  the 
department  of  brilliant  talking,  and  no  one  ever  shone  there  more 
conspicuously  than  he  did.  His  worldly  wisdom  was  wonderful. 
Nor  was  it  confined  to  things  at  home,  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  the  intrigue  of  Downing  Street.  He  was  really  the  only 
English  Radical,  with  Dilke,  who  had  an  accurate  acquaintance 
with  affairs  abroad,  and  he  had  his  Europe  at  his  finger-ends. 
He  would  have  made  an  admirable  ambassador,  where  any  diffi- 
cult matters  had  to  be  carried  through,  and  he  ought  certainly 
to  have  been  given  the  Embassy  he  so  much  desired  at  Washing- 
ton. It  was  always  his  ambition,  even  stronger  I  think  than 
that  of  holding  Cabinet  Office,  to  go  back  to  his  old  diplomatic 
profession  and  give  serious  proof  of  his  capacity  in  a  service 


72  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1853- 

where,  as  a  young  man,  he  had  played  the  fool.  The  Foreign 
Office  would  have  found  itself  the  stronger  for  his  help. 

Our  sympathy,  which  had  begun  about  Egypt,  was  carried  on, 
I  am  glad  to  remember,  during  the  years  of  stress  which  followed, 
also  to  Ireland ;  and  from  first  to  last  my  experience  of  his  political 
action  has  been  that  of  a  man  courageously  consistent  in  his  love 
of  liberty,  his  hatred  of  tyranny,  and  his  contempt  of  the  insin- 
cerities of  public  life.  He  was  never  taken  in  by  the  false  argu- 
ments with  which  politicians  conceal  their  treacheries,  and  he 
was  never  himself  a  betrayer.  If  my  testimony  can  be  of  any 
service  to  his  memory  as  an  honest  man,  I  freely  give  it. 

The  last  time  I  saw  him  was  in  the  summer  of  1902,  when  he 
came  down  with  his  wife  and  daughter  to  spend  a  week-end, 
July  1 2th  to  I4th,  with  me  and  my  wife  in  Sussex.  He  had 
resolved  to  pass  the  rest  of  his  days  at  Florence,  and  it  was  a 
farewell  visit  that  he  paid  us.  He  had  just  bought  Michael 
Angelo's  Villa,  and  talked  much  about  it  and  his  design,  phili- 
stine  that  he  was,  of  turning  it  inside  out,  fitting  it  with  electric 
light,  and  otherwise  bedevilling  it  with  modern  improvements, 
uprooting  the  old  trees  in  the  podere  and  planting  new  ones. 
On  matters  of  this  sort  he  was  a  terrible  barbarian,  and  took 
delight  in  playing  the  vandal  with  places  and  things  which  the 
rest  of  the  world  held  in  reverence.  "  Old  Michael,"  he  explained, 
"knew  nothing  about  the  comforts  of  a  modern  establishment, 
and  it  was  time  that  he  should  learn  them."  Apart  from  this 
little  mSchancete,  he  proved  himself  a  most  delectable  companion, 
giving  us  a  true  feast  of  wit  and  wisdom  the  whole  Sunday 
through.  Sibyl,  Lady  Queensberry,  was  of  our  party,  and  Colonel 
Bill  Gordon,  General  Gordon's  nephew,  with  whom  he  had  much 
talk  about  Khartoum  and  Egypt.  Gordon  was  a  good  talker 
on  his  own  subjects,  and  they  got  on  well  together,  sitting  up  till 
half-past  one  the  first  night,  telling  story  after  story.  Among 
them,  I  remember,  Labouchere  gave  us  accounts  of  his  adventures 
in  Mexico,  and  also  of  a  ride  he  had  taken  from  Damascus  to 
Palmyra  with  Lady  Ellenborough  and  her  Bedouin  husband, 
Sheykh  Mijwel  el  Mizrab,  with  reminiscences  of  the  early  days 
we  had  spent  together  in  the  Diplomatic  Service,  his  gambling 
acquaintances  at  Hombourg,  and  his  duel  in  Sweden.  He  was 
especially  interested  in  this  visit  to  the  Weald  of  Sussex,  and  in 


1864]  TRAVELS  AND  DIPLOMACY  73 

his  having  passed  in  the  train  almost  within  sight  of  Broome 
Hall,  under  Leith  Hill,  where  he  had  lived  as  a  boy.  He  had  not 
been  that  way  since,  he  said.  The  second  evening  he  was  less 
brilliant,  as  Hilaire  Belloc  had  joined  our  party,  a  rival  talker 
to  whom  he  left  the  monopoly  of  our  entertainment.  But  it 
was  an  altogether  pleasant  two  days  that  we  passed  together. 
I  am  glad  to  have  the  recollection  of  them.  Alas,  they  were  the 
last  we  were  to  see  of  him,  for  he  left  England  soon  afterwards, 
and  we  never  met  again. 


CHAPTER  IV 
PARLIAMENTARY  AMBITIONS 

(1866-1869) 

BEING  asked  on  some  occasion,  "Why  do  men  enter 
Parliament?"  Mr.  Labouchere  replied:  "Some  of 
them  enter  Parliament  because  they  have  been  local  Bulls  of 
Bashan,  and  consider  that  in  the  localities  where  they  have 
roared,  and  pawed  the  ground,  they  will  be  even  more  im- 
portant than  heretofore ;  some  because  they  want  to  be  peers, 
baronets,  and  knights;  some  because  they  have  a  fad  to  air; 
some  because  they  want  to  have  a  try  at  climbing  the  greasy 
pole  of  office ;  some  because  they  have  heard  that  the  House 
of  Commons  is  the  best  club  in  London;  some  because  they 
delude  themselves  that  they  are  orators;  some  for  want  of 
anything  better  to  do ;  some  because  they  want  to  make  a  bit 
out  of  company  promoting;  and  some  because  they  have  a 
vague  notion  that  they  are  going  to  benefit  their  country 
by  their  devotion  to  legislative  business. "  He  frankly  con- 
fessed, however,  that  none  of  the  above  considerations  had 
influenced  him  in  his  own  decision  to  enter  upon  a  parlia- 
mentary life.  Curiosity  had  been  his  inducement  in  the 
first  place,  and  secondly,  a  conviction  that  the  House  would 
benefit  considerably  from  contact  with  so  sound  a  Radical  as 
himself. 

In  the  autumn  of  the  year  that  he  left  the  Diplomatic 
Service,  it  was  suggested  to  Mr.  Labouchere  by  several 

74 


[1866-1869]    PARLIAMENTARY  AMBITIONS  75 

friends  that  he  should  come  forward  as  a  candidate  in  the 
next  General  Election  for  the  borough  of  New  Windsor. 
There  was  already  another  Liberal  in  the  field — Mr.  Flower 
of  Stratford-on-Avon.  Labouchere  decided  to  confer  with 
him  on  the  subject.  They  met,  accordingly,  at  the  Reform 
Club,  Labouchere  having  been  previously  warned  by  the 
Town  Clerk  of  Windsor,  Mr.  Darvill,  to  act  quite  independ- 
ently of  Flower,  as  he  was  in  the  hands  of  agents,  in  whom 
the  leading  men  of  the  place  had  little  confidence.  Mr. 
Labouchere  describes  in  his  own  words  the  upshot  of  the 
interview :  "  We  met  at  the  Reform  Club,  in  the  presence  of 
Mr.  Grant  (one  of  Flower's  agents)  and  Mr.  Darvill,  junior. 
As,  however,  both  of  us  evidently  thought  that  only  one 
Liberal  could  be  returned  at  Windsor,  and  as  each  of  us 
intended  to  be  that  Liberal,  we  separated  without  coming  to 
any  arrangement  to  act  together."1 

Labouchere  then  went  abroad,  returning  to  England  in 
January  for  a  fortnight,  during  which  time  he  gave  a  dinner 
at  Windsor,  held  a  public  meeting,  and  identified  himself  as 
much  as  it  was  possible  to  do,  in  so  short  a  time,  with  the 
local  interests  of  the  borough.  In  May,  1865,  Mr.  Flower 
retired  from  the  candidature,  because  he  felt  that  his  agents, 
Grant  and  Dunn,  had  compromised  him  by  corrupt  prac- 
tices. As  these  gentlemen  had  hired  as  many  as  twenty 
public  houses  for  committee  rooms,  a  number  ludicrously  out 
of  proportion  to  the  size  of  the  constituency,  he  acted  wisely 
in  doing  so.  He  informed  Labouchere  of  his  decision.  Mr. 
Darvill  also  wrote,  recommending  Labouchere  to  return  to 
England,  and  if  he  really  intended  to  stand  for  Windsor,  to 
take  some  steps  for  insuring  his  return  by  appointing  agents, 
and  taking  the  usual  preliminary  precautions. 

To  continue  the  narrative  in  Mr.  Labouchere's  own 
words :  "Sir  Henry  Hoare,  a  day  or  two  after  my  return  to 
England,  called  upon  me  to  tell  me  that  he  had  been  in 
communication  with  Mr.  Darvill,  and  that  as  Mr.  Darvill 

1  Times,  April  27,  1866. 


76  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1866- 

had  told  me  he  thought  that,  if  two  Liberal  candidates  acted 
firmly  together,  both  might  be  returned,  he  came  to  propose 
to  me  to  make  common  cause  with  him.  The  next  day  we 
called  together  on  Mr.  Durrant,  a  London  solicitor,  who  had 
acted  for  Sir  Henry  Hoare,  and  we  begged  him  to  go  down  to 
Windsor,  and  after  seeing  the  principal  Liberals,  to  report  to 
us  the  state  of  affairs.  This  he  did.  He  told  us  Mr.  Flower 
had  engaged  twenty  committee  rooms — a  number  which  was 
clearly  too  great,  and  he  recommended  us  to  take  on  nine  of 
them.  We  sent  him  down  to  Windsor  again  to  arrange 
about  the  committee  rooms  and  about  taking  on  agents,  and 
he,  in  conjunction  with  Mr.  Last,  retained  the  usual  Liberal 
agents,  who  were  the  same  as  had  been  engaged  by  Mr. 
Flower.  It  was  distinctly  understood  at  the  same  time,  that 
we  only  took  on  nine  committee  rooms.  Mr.  Flower,  after, 
I  believe,  a  long  correspondence  with  Mr.  Cleave,  agreed 
to  pay  for  the  eleven  committee  rooms  which  he  had  engaged. 
Sir  Henry  Hoare  and  I  were  both  returned  as  members  for 
Windsor." 

It  was  an  unfortunate  action,  however,  on  the  part  of  the 
two  Liberal  candidates  to  make  use  of  the  same  agents  who 
had  compromised  Mr.  Flower,  and  it  cost  them  their  seats. 
The  election  took  place  in  November,  1865,  and  the  result  of 
the  poll  was  as  follows: 

Sir  Henry  Hoare          ....  324  votes 

Mr.  Labouchere          ....  323 

Mr.  Vansittart  (Cons.)         .          .          .  291     " 

Col.  Vyse  (Cons.)       .         .         .         .  261     " 

On  April  26,  1866,  the  chairman  of  a  select  committee,1 
appointed  to  try  the  merits  of  the  petition  against  the  return 

1  The  committee  was  composed  as  follows:  Mr.  John  Tomlinson  Hibbert 
(Chairman),  Mr.  Robert  Dalglish,  Mr.  Arthur  Wellesley  Peel,  Hon.  Fredk. 
Stanley,  and  Major  Waterhouse.  It  sat  for  six  days.  The  counsel  for  the 
petitioners  were:  Mr.  W.  H.  Cooke,  Q.C.,  Mr.  Matthews,  arid  Mr.  Campbell 
Bruce.  For  the  defendants:  Mr.  Serjeant  Ballantine  and  Mr.  Biron. 


1869]  PARLIAMENTARY  AMBITIONS  77 

of  Sir  Henry  Hoare  and  Mr.  Labouchere  for  the  borough  of 
New  Windsor,  on  the  grounds  that  it  was  obtained  by  means 
of  bribery,  treating,  and  undue  influence,  announced  that  the 
committee  had  arrived  at  the  following  determination : 

"That  Sir  Henry  Ainslie  Hoare  is  not  duly  elected  a 
burgess  to  serve  in  the  present  parliament  for  the  borough  of 
New  Windsor.  That  Henry  Labouchere,  Esq.,  is  not  duly 
elected  to  serve  in  the  present  parliament  for  the  borough  of 
New  Windsor.  That  Sir  Henry  Ainslie  Hoare  is,  by  his 
agents,  guilty  of  bribery.  That  it  has  been  proved  that 
various  acts  of  bribery  have  been  committed  by  the  agents  of 
the  sitting  members  by  the  engagement  of  an  excessive 
number  of  public  houses  in  which  it  was  proved  that  none  of 
the  legitimate  business  of  the  election  was  transacted,  and 
for  which  sums  varying  from  £10  to  £20  were  paid.  That 
it  has  not  been  proved  that  such  acts  were  committed  with 
the  knowledge  or  consent  of  the  said  Sir  Henry  Hoare  and 
the  said  Henry  Labouchere,  Esq.  That  the  committee  have 
no  reason  to  believe  that  bribery  and  corruption  exten- 
sively prevailed  at  the  last  election  for  the  borough  of  New 
Windsor." 

The  committee  had  sat  for  six  days  before  the  above 
decision  was  arrived  at,  and  many  were  the  entertaining 
encounters  between  the  defendants'  counsel,  the  great  Mr. 
Serjeant  Ballantine,  and  the  witnesses  for  the  petitioners. 
One  of  the  latter  explained  that  he  had  voted  for  the  Con- 
servatives because  Mr.  Vansittart  was  a  "very  nice  old  man." 
Under  cross-examination  it  was  elicited  with  difficulty  that 
Mr.  Vansittart  had  not  given  his  wife  and  daughter  each 
a  new  dress.  Being  further  pressed,  he  announced  that 
he  could  prove  it.  "How?"  questioned  the  counsel.  "I 
have  n't  got  no  wife  nor  no  daughter, "  complained  the 
witness.  A  charge  of  presenting  a  silk  gown  to  the  wife  of 
one  of  the  electors  was  preferred  against  Henry  Labouchere. 
He  did  not  deny  having  done  so.  "The  lady  in  question," 
he  explained,  "was  extremely  good-looking,  and  I  have 


78  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1866- 

frequently  noticed  that  a  present  of  finery  is  a  simple  way  to 
win  the  female  heart.  I  regret  that,  in  the  particular  case, 
I  was  unsuccessful,  but,  good  God,  you  do  not  insinuate  for  a 
moment,  do  you,  that  I  intended  her  husband  to  know  any- 
thing about  the  affair?" 

The  line  of  defence  taken  up  by  Labouchere  will  easily  be 
seen  by  reading  the  letter  he  sent  to  the  Times  the  day  after 
the  committee  had  reached  their  decision.  I  give  it  in  full, 
with  the  exception  of  some  sentences  that  have  already  been 
quoted : 

ALBANY,  April  26. 

SIR, — In  an  article  to-day  on  the  recent  decision  of  the 
Election  Committees,  you  allude  to  the  case  of  Windsor. 

As  your  observations  tend  to  lead  those  who  read  them  to 
form  the  conclusion  that  my  late  constituents  are  somewhat 
corrupt,  in  justice  to  them,  I  should  feel  obliged  to  you  to  allow 
me  to  say  a  few  words  in  their  defence.  It  may  be  useful  to 
future  candidates  to  know  on  what  grounds  Sir  Henry  Hoare 
and  I  have  been  unseated.  .  .  . 

We  were  petitioned  against  on  the  usual  charges  of  bribery 
and  intimidation.  To  the  charges  of  direct  bribery  and  indirectly 
bribing  by  the  promise  of  work  we  replied,  I  believe,  to  the  satis- 
faction of  the  Committee.  The  case  of  the  petitioners  rested 
upon  the  charge  that  we  had  engaged  too  many  committee  rooms. 

The  Committee  unseated  us  because:  "It  had  been  proved 
that  acts  of  bribery  had  been  committed  by  the  engagement,  by 
the  agents  of  the  sitting  members,  of  an  excessive  number  of 
public  houses,  in  which  it  was  proved  that  none  of  the  legitimate 
business  of  the  election  was  transacted,  and  for  which  sums 
varying  from  £10  to  £20  were  paid.  That  it  has  not  been  proved 
that  such  acts  were  committed  with  the  knowledge  or  consent 
of  the  said  Sir  Henry  Hoare  and  the  said  Henry  Labouchere." 

Now  this  decision  must  have  been  come  to  on  the  supposi- 
tion that  Sir  Henry  Hoare  and  I  were  responsible  for  the  eleven 
committee  rooms,  paid  for  by  Mr.  Flower,  because  we  both  swore 
that  the  nine  committee  rooms  were  taken  with  "knowledge  and 
consent."  The  Committee  consequently  must  have  concluded 
either  that  Mr.  Flower,  Mr.  Durrant,  Sir  H.  Hoare,  and  myself 


1869]  PARLIAMENTARY  AMBITIONS  79 

were  guilty  of  perjury  in  swearing  that  the  payment  by  Mr. 
Flower  was  bona  fide,  or  that  Sir  H.  Hoare  and  I,  in  taking  on 
agents  in  May,  became  responsible  for  what  these  agents  had 
done  in  the  interests  of  a  third  party  during  the  winter. 

Our  case  rested  on  the  fact  that  "none  of  the  legitimate 
business  of  the  election"  was  transacted  in  Mr.  Flower's  public 
houses,  and  that  if  a  bill  with  the  words  "Committee  Rooms "  was 
hung  over  any  room  in  Mr.  Flower's  public  houses  it  was  because 
the  publicans  considered  they  would  advertise  their  own  political 
principles  by  showing  that  they  had  been  engaged  by  a  Liberal 
candidate  who  had  retired.  Every  one  knows  that,  if  an  elec- 
tioneering bill  over  a  public  house  is  an  advertisement  for  a 
candidate,  it  is  also  an  advertisement  for  the  public  house,  and 
that  publicans  like  it  to  be  supposed  that  they  belong  to  one  or 
other  of  the  parties  during  a  contested  election.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  some  of  Mr.  Flower's  publicans  did  not  vote  for  me. 

I  may  then  fairly  state  that  my  late  colleague  and  I  were 
unseated  because  one  of  our  agents  had  been  concerned,  months 
before  he  became  our  agent,  in  taking  public  houses  in  undue 
numbers  for  Mr.  Flower. 

Now,  sir,  I  would  venture  to  call  the  attention  of  the  Legis- 
lature to  the  new  and  strange  principle  of  jurisprudence  on  which 
the  decision  of  the  Windsor  Election  Committee  has  been  based. 
I  do  so  in  the  interests  of  all  candidates,  for,  as  far  as  I  am  con- 
cerned, I  have  unfortunately  no  appeal  against  the  decision. 

It  is  sufficiently  difficult  to  prevent  over  zealous  committee 
men  and  agents  from  compromising  their  candidate  during  the 
election;  but,  if  he  is  to  be  retrospectively  responsible  for  all 
their  previous  acts,  I  venture  to  say  that  no  candidate  can  expect 
to  hold  his  seat  against  a  petition.  Were  the  retrospective 
responsibility  introduced  into  the  procedure  of  courts  of  law  no 
man  would  be  safe.  I  might,  sir,  to-morrow  have  the  advantage 
of  making  your  acquaintance.  Some  days  later  I  might  take  a 
servant  whom  you  had  formerly  employed.  Ought  I  to  be  hung 
if  it  were  subsequently  shown  that  you  and  the  servant  had 
murdered  some  one  last  January  in  London,  while  I  was  in 
Italy? 

Were  I  still  a  member  of  the  Legislature,  I  should  myself 
point  out  the  necessity  of  a  reform  in  the  composition  of  election 


8o  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1866- 

committees.  As  an  elector  of  Westminster,  I  shall,  through  my 
representative,  Capt.  Grosvenor,  present  a  petition  to  the  House 
of  Commons  praying  that  some  alteration  be  made  in  the  present 
system,  and  that  a  properly  qualified  judge  be  added  to  every 
committee  to  explain  the  elementary  principles  of  jurisprudence 
to  well-intentioned  gentlemen  who  know  nothing  about  them.1 
— I  am,  Sir,  Your  obedient  servant, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

A  number  of  extremely  interesting  letters  appeared  in  the 
Times,  on  the  subject  of  the  New  Windsor  Election  Petition, 
one  other,  only,  of  which  I  shall  quote,  as  it  puts  the  case  for 
Mr.  Labouchere  and  his  colleagues  in  a  perfectly  clear  light. 
It  runs  as  follows : 

SIR, — My  name  having  prominently  appeared  in  the  pro- 
ceeding before  the  Election  Committee  in  this  case,  and  in  com- 
munications made  to  you  by  Sir  Henry  Hoare  and  Mr.  Labou- 
chere, complaining  of  the  decision  of  the  committee,  I  trust  you 
will  not  refuse  me  an  opportunity  of  corroborating  their  state- 
ments. I  may  say,  as  a  prelude,  that  the  agents  had  the  most 
distinct  directions  to  do  nothing  in  contradiction  of  the  statutes 
relating  to  the  election  of  members  to  serve  in  Parliament,  and 
I  proved,  in  evidence,  my  written  instructions  to  that  effect. 

Sir  Henry  Hoare  and  Mr.  Labouchere,  being  aware  that 
Mr.  Flower  had  retired  by  reason  of  his  belief  that  he  had  been 
compromised  by  his  agents,  were  most  anxious  to  avoid  becoming 
in  any  way  identified  with  their  proceedings;  and,  as  regards  the 
public  houses,  which  had  been  taken  on  his  behalf,  the  late 
members  entirely  repudiated,  both  personally,  and  through  me, 
having  anything  whatever  to  do  with  them. 

No  one  had  authority  to  hire  committee  rooms  but  Mr. 
Last,  the  head  agent  at  Windsor,  and  no  complaint  is  made  in 
the  Committee's  Report  in  respect  of  the  nine  houses  engaged 
by  him.  Not  a  shilling  has,  to  my  knowledge  or  belief,  been 
paid,  or  promised  on  account,  of  what  I  may,  for  brevity,  call 
"  Mr.  Flower's  public  houses  " ;  so  that,  in  fact,  these  houses  were 

1  Times,  April  27,  1866. 


1869]  PARLIAMENTARY  AMBITIONS  81 

neither  hired  by,  paid  for,  nor  used  by  the  late  members  or  their 
agents. 

The  unseating,  therefore,  of  the  late  members  for  New 
Windsor  upon  the  grounds  stated  in  the  Report  of  the  Committee 
is,  I  venture  to  suggest,  unprecedented  in  the  annals  of  election 
petitions,  and  affords  just  ground  for  complaint,  and  for  giving, 
in  future  cases  some  appeal,  where  there  may  be  a  similar  mis- 
carriage of  justice.1 — I  am,  Sir,  Your  obedient  servant, 

G.  J.  DURRANT. 

Henry  Labouchere  made  his  maiden  speech  during  the  six 
months  that  he  was  member  for  New  Windsor.  It  was  upon 
an  uninteresting  and  complicated  subject — namely,  the  in- 
adequacy of  our  Neutrality  Law  to  enable  us  to  fulfil  our 
international  obligations  towards  foreign  countries.  The 
debate,  begun  in  February,  continued  well  into  the  March  of 
1866.  Labouchere  made  his  speech  on  the  22nd  of  February. 
During  the  course  of  it  he  said  that,  having  passed  ten  years 
in  the  Diplomatic  Service,  he  had  given  some  consideration  to 
the  subject  of  International  Law,  which  had  led  him  to 
believe  that,  from  defects  and  inefficiency,  our  Neutrality 
Law  was  fraught  not  only  with  future  danger  to  ourselves, 
but  was  calculated  to  prevent  us  from  acting  justly  towards 
our  Allies.  He  quoted,  in  support  of  his  argument,  the  rela- 
tions of  England  with  the  United  States  of  America,  the 
sympathy  of  America  with  Fenianism,  and  our  loss  of 
commerce  with  America.  *  On  March  7  he  voted  in  favour 
of  the  Church  Rates  Abolition  Bill,  which  was  read  for  the 
second  time  on  that  day  and  committed. 

Of  course  he  was  very  funny  on  the  subject  of  the  election 
at  New  Windsor.  He  was  fond  of  relating  how  it  was  that  he 
first  became  an  M.P.  "I  had  to  kiss  the  babies,"  he  said, 
"pay  compliments  to  their  mothers,  and  explain  the  beauties 
of  Liberalism  to  their  fathers,  who  never  could  be  got  to  say 
how  they  would  vote.  On  the  day  of  the  election  everything 

1  Times,  April  27,  1866.  » Hansard,  vol.  181,  s.  3. 

6 


82  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1866- 

tumed  upon  half  a  dozen  votes.  I  remember  one  Tory  went 
out  to  fish  in  a  punt,  and  the  boatman  who  accompanied 
him  was  induced  to  keep  him  well  out  in  the  middle  of  the 
river,  until  the  polling  hour  had  passed.  Another  aged  and 
decrepid  Tory  was  kept  in  the  house  by  having  cabs  run  at 
him  whenever  he  tried  to  issue  from  his  door.  Finally  the 
Liberals  won  the  day.  On  this  the  Tories  petitioned.  The 
committee  decided  that  there  .had  been  no  bribery,  but 
unseated  my  colleague  and  myself  because  they  thought  that 
we  had  hired  an  excessive  number  of  committee  rooms. " 

And  again:  "One  man  at  this  election  amused  me.  He 
hung  about  outside  my  committee  room,  and  whenever  he 
saw  me  he  wrung  my  hand.  On  my  first  interview  with  this 
patriot,  he  informed  me  that,  at  an  early  hour  of  the  morning, 
he  had  personated  Dr.  Gumming,  and  had  voted  for  me  as 
that  divine.  Each  time  I  saw  him  during  the  day,  he  said 
that  he  had  been  personating  some  one,  and  always  a  clergy- 
man. I  remonstrated  with  him  but  uselessly." 

The  playwright,  Herman  Merivale,  tells  an  anecdote 
about  Henry  Labouchere,  in  connection  with  the  Windsor 
election,  which  it  is  very  probable  he  heard  from  the  whilom 
member  himself.  "  Lord  Taunton, "  writes  Merivale,  "  uncle 
and  precursor  of  our  more  famous  Labby,  is  fabled  to  have 
lived  in  a  general  state  of  alarm  at  the  strange  proclivities  of 
that  unchastened  heir,  who  has  furnished  the  world  with 
more  amusing  stories  of  a  curious  humour  than  any  public 
man  of  his  time.  It  is  said  that  when  Lord  Taunton  heard 
that  his  nephew  contemplated  public  life,  and  proposed  to 
stand  for  one  of  the  county  divisions  in  the  district,  he  was 
much  pleased  at  such  a  sign  of  grace,  and  asked  if  he  could 
do  anything  for  him.  'Really  I  think  not,'  replied  the 
younger  Henry,  'but  I  don't  know.  If  you  would  put  on 
your  peer's  robes,  and  walk  arm-in-arm  with  me  down  the 
High  Street  of  Windsor,  it  might  have  a  good  effect. " * 

Another  opportunity  soon  occurred  for  Labouchere  to  re- 

1  Herman  Merivale,  Bar,  Stage,  and  Platform. 


1869]  PARLIAMENTARY  AMBITIONS  83 

enter  the  House  of  Commons.  On  the  death  of  Mr.  Robert 
Hanbury,  one  of  the  members  for  Middlesex,  he  presented 
himself  to  the  electors,  and  was  returned  without  opposition, 
on  April  1 6, 1 867.  An  extract  from  his  address  to  the  electors, 
dated  March  29,  is  not  without  interest,  as  in  it  he  unblush- 
ingly  gives  expression  to  the  democratic  principles  to  which 
he  remained  so  faithful  throughout  his  career.  "Should 
you  do  me  the  honour, "  he  said,  "to  return  me  to  Parliament, 
it  would  be  my  first  duty  to  co-operate  with  those  who  desire 
to  effect  the  passage  of  an  honest  and  straightforward 
measure  of  reform — such  a  measure  as  would  prove  to  the 
large  body  of  artisans  and  working  men,  whom  I  hold  to  be 
entitled  to  the  franchise,  that  the  House  of  Commons  is  not 
afraid  of  the  people,  nor  averse  to  the  free  extension  of  politi- 
cal privileges,  nor  disposed  to  deny  to  the  intelligent  opera- 
tives a  share  in  the  government  of  the  country  to  whose 
burdens  they  are  called  upon  to  contribute.  If  the  Reform 
Bill  proposed  by  the  Tory  Ministry  is  not  capable  of  adapta- 
tion to  such  an  end,  I  should  not  hesitate  to  give  my  ad- 
herence to  any  cause  which  may  seem  the  most  calculated 
to  attain  the  desired  object. " * 

While  he  was  member  for  Middlesex,  Labouchere  was 
assiduous  in  his  parliamentary  duties.  He  spoke  frequently 
and  to  the  point,  on  such  subjects  as  the  "Expenses  of 
Voters,"1  on  "the  Sale  of  Liquor  on  Sundays  Bill"3  (a 
characteristically  amusing  speech) ,  on  "Licences  "  (Brewers') , 4 
on  the  "Military  Knights  of  Windsor  attending  Church,"5 
on  "Appeals  in  the  House  of  Lords."6  He  objected  to  a 
vote  to  complete  the  sum  of  £2135  for  building  new  Embassy 
houses  in  Madrid  and  Paris,7  and  offered  some  practical 
suggestions  as  to  the  building  (or  buying)  of  new  Embassy 
buildings  at  Therapia.8 

»  Times,  April  2,  1867.  •  Times,  July  5,  1867. 

»  Times,  March  19,  1868.  «  Times,  March  25,  1868. 

*  Times,  June  24,  1868.  •  Times,  May  29,  1868. 

i  Times,  May  I,  1868.  •  Times,  April  21,  1868. 


84  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1866- 

In  short,  he  was  an  active  and  useful  member.  The 
speeches  which  have  been  most  frequently  quoted  are  the 
ones  which  he  made  on  May  14,  protesting  against  a  vote 
of  £137,524,  for  the  upkeep  of  the  Royal  Parks  and  Pleasure 
Grounds, x  and  his  two  speeches  on  the  Public  Schools  Bill.  * 
In  the  former  he  asserted  that  it  was  unjust  and  quite  illogical 
to  prohibit  the  entrance  of  cabs  into  Hyde  Park.  Most  of 
his  friends,  he  announced,  were  not  in  a  position  to  keep 
their  own  carriages,  yet  they  passionately  longed  to  drive 
about  in  the  haunts  of  fashion.  He  himself  suffered  cruelly 
under  the  same  longing  and  disability,  and  such  an  exclusion, 
he  explained,  was  quite  incompatible  with  the  spirit  of 
Liberalism.  He  referred  to  the  regulations  concerning  the 
public  parks  of  Vienna  and  Paris  to  show  that  the  prejudice 
against  hired  vehicles  was  entirely  British  and  snobbish. 

On  another  occasion,  Mr.  Lowe  had  moved  a  clause  to  the 
effect  that  boys  educated  at  public  schools  should  be  ex- 
amined once  a  year,  by  an  Inspector  of  Education,  in  simple 
reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic,  and  that  a  report  as  to  their 
attainments  should  be  laid  before  Parliament. 

On  this  Labouchere  made  an  excellent  speech.  In  the 
course  of  it,  he  said  that  he  hoped  Mr.  Lowe's  clause  would 
be  pressed  to  a  division,  because  it  was  evident  that  most 
pupils  at  public  schools  did  not  know  as  much  as  an  average 
charity  boy.  Complaint  had  been  made  that  the  whole  time 
of  public  school  boys  was  taken  up  by  the  study  of  Latin  and 
Greek,  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  learned  very  little  of  these 
languages.  An  ordinarily  educated  German  could  converse 
with  a  foreigner  in  Latin,  if  the  two  had  no  other  language  in 
common,  but  how  many  Englishmen  carried  from  a  public 
school  sufficient  Latin  to  do  this?  He  confessed  that  he 
himself,  although  he  might  be  able  to  translate  some  half  a 
dozen  words  of  Latin,  was  wholly  unable  to  translate  a 
sentence  of  Greek,  although  he  had  studied  those  languages 
for  years  at  a  public  school.  He  complained  that  this 

1  Times,  May  15,  1868.  »  Times,  June  17  and  24,  1868. 


1869]  PARLIAMENTARY  AMBITIONS  85 

ignorance  was  the  fault  of  a  system,  and  the  misfortune  of 
those  who  were  obliged  to  undergo  it. 

Mr.  Labouchere  used  to  relate  the  following  reminis- 
cence of  the  days  when  he  was  member  for  Middlesex:  "It 
is  a  curious  fact — such  is  the  irony  of  fate — that  these  dues 
(the  Middlesex  Coal  Dues)  were  once  prolonged  owing  to  me. 
About  twenty  years  ago,  I  was  member  for  Middlesex.  A 
Bill  was  brought  forward  to  prolong  the  dues  in  order  to 
borrow  the  money  for  certain  Metropolitan  improvements. 
Now  the  dues  are  collected  from  the  inhabitants,  not  only  of 
the  metropolis,  but  of  all  Middlesex.  My  constituents 
wanted  the  bridges  over  the  Thames  and  the  Lea,  beyond  the 
Metropolitan  area,  to  be  freed.  So  I  persistently  opposed  the 
Bill  by  much  talking,  by  amendments,  and  other  such 
devices  (for  although  blocking  had  not  been  invented,  ob- 
struction was  even  then  not  without  its  resources).  This 
led  to  negotiation,  and  it  was  finally  agreed  that  the 
prolongation  should  be  for  a  still  longer  period  than  was 
proposed  by  the  Bill,  in  order  that  money  should  also  be 
borrowed  to  free  the  bridges."1 

Lord  Derby's  administration,  under  which  Labouchere 
had  become  one  of  the  Liberal  members  for  Middlesex,  was 
succeeded  by  the  first  administration  of  Mr.  Disraeli.  In 
December,  1868,  the  General  Election  took  place,  by  which 
Mr.  Gladstone,  in  his  turn,  was  put,  for  the  first  time,  at  the 
head  of  Queen  Victoria's  Government.  Mr.  Labouchere 
presented  himself  for  re-election  at  Middlesex  in  November. 
It  was  at  first  thought  that  both  the  sitting  members,  himself 
and  Lord  Enfield,  would  have  a  quiet  "walk-over."  The 
Conservatives,  however,  were  determined  to  put  forward  at 
least  one  candidate,  and  they  selected  Lord  George  Hamilton, 
the  third  son  of  the  Duke  of  Abercorn. 

On  November  2,  both  Henry  Labouchere  and  Lord 
Enfield  issued  their  addresses,  Lord  Enfield  appealing  to  his 
electors  on  grounds  no  more  vital  than  that  he  had  repre- 

1  Truth,  November  25,  1886. 


86  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1866- 

sented  Middlesex  in  Parliament  for  the  last  eleven  years,  and 
Mr.  Labouchere  because  he  frankly  avowed  himself  in 
favour  of  the  disestablishment  of  the  Anglican  Church  in 
Ireland  as  being  likely  to  strengthen  the  establishment  of  the 
Church  of  England  in  the  sister  isle,  and,  to  quote  verbatim 
from  his  speech:  "I  shall,"  he  said,  "oppose  the  proposal 
which  was  made  last  year  by  the  Government  of  Mr.  Dis- 
raeli to  endow  a  Roman  Catholic  university.  While  I 
respect  the  sincere  convictions  of  my  Roman  Catholic 
countrymen  and  desire  that  their  religious  convictions  should 
not  subject  them  either  to  civil  or  political  disqualification, 
I  do  not  think  that  their  Church  or  their  educational  es- 
tablishments should  have  any  portion  of  the  revenues  now 
enjoyed  by  the  established  Church."  He  went  on  to  say: 
"Since  a  Conservative  Government  has  been  in  power  the 
public  departments  have  vied  with  each  other  in  extrava- 
gance. The  efforts  of  private  members  in  which  I  have 
joined  have  proved  ineffectual  to  check  the  waste.  The 
sooner  Mr.  Gladstone  is  in  office  the  better  for  the  taxpayer." x 

The  two  Liberal  candidates  made  public  speeches  to  their 
electors  on  the  same  day  that  they  issued  their  addresses. 
Labouchere  made  his  in  the  British  Schools  at  Brentford,  and 
the  points  on  which  he  argued  were  the  disestablishment  of 
the  Irish  Church  and  the  waste  of  public  money.  The 
selection  of  Lord  George  Hamilton  as  the  Conservative 
candidate  gave  him  an  opportunity  of  making  some  extremely 
annoying  remarks.  He  referred  to  him  as  "a  young  gentle- 
man who  had  lately  joined  the  army — an  unfledged  ensign 
who  was  getting  on  with  the  goose  step  and  preparing  himself 
for  the  onerous  duties  connected  with  the  Horse  Guards," 
and  other  taunting  remarks  of  a  similar  nature. 

The  embryo  M.P.,  on  November  9,  stung  to  madness 
by  Labouchere's  witticisms,  boldly  announced  himself  as  his 
opponent  in  particular.  He  hotly  denied  that  his  father  had 
received  annually  for  many  years  a  large  sum  of  money  from 

1  Times,  November  3,  1868. 


1869]  PARLIAMENTARY  AMBITIONS  87 

the  State  and  then  had  been  made  a  duke  for  his  kindness  in 
having  accepted  it.  The  Conservative  meeting  at  which  the 
young  guardsman  spoke  would  have  been  a  decided  political 
success  had  it  not  been  for  the  zeal  of  the  gentleman  who 
seconded  the  vote  of  confidence.  He  remarked  that,  ever 
since  the  day  when  King  John  had  signed  the  Magna  Charta, 
the  people  of  this  country  had  been  indebted  to  the  aris- 
tocracy for  all  the  liberties  enjoyed  in  the  Empire.  Storms  of 
groans  and  hisses  met  his  well-meant  remark,  and  though 
the  vote  of  confidence  was  passed,  the  show  of  hands  was 
manifestly  against  it.1 

But  the  real  interest  of  the  election  was  centred  in  the 
personal  quarrel  between  the  Liberal  candidates,  which  re- 
sulted in  a  Tory  being  returned  for  Middlesex.  They 
appeared  each  to  be  possessed  with  an  ungovernable  hatred 
for  the  other,  which  was  extremely  prejudicial  to  their  cause. 
The  occasion  of  their  public  rupture  was  a  dispute  over  the 
selection  of  electioneering  agents,  and  by  November  12  the 
attitude  of  the  belligerents  had  become  so  extremely  abusive 
that  an  important  conference  of  Liberals  from  all  parts  of 
Middlesex  had  to  be  convened  to  consider  the  disunited  state 
of  their  interest,  more  especially  as  it  related  to  the  relative 
bearing  of  the  candidates  towards  each  other. 

Whereupon  Labouchere  and  Enfield  each  addressed  a 
public  meeting  and  gave  their  separate  versions  of  the 
quarrel.  The  delight  of  the  Tories  was  excessive,  and  they 
did  all  they  could  to  foment  the  affair.  The  Times  rose  to 
unaccustomed  heights  of  irony  in  a  leading  article  occasioned 
by  the  following  not  exactly  conciliatory  letter  addressed  by 
Labouchere  to  its  editor: 

SIR, — In  the  interests  of  the  party  Lord  Enfield  and  I  would 
do  well  to  adjourn  the  discussion  of  all  personal  differences  until 
after  the  Election.  Lord  Enfield  had  distinctly  refused  to  unite 
before  those  differences  arose;  our  discussion  therefore  has 
nothing  to  do  with  our  political  disunion. 

1  Times,  November  10,  1868. 


88  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1866- 

The  constituency  wish  our  union,  I  wish  it  too — but  per- 
sonal relations  need  not  be  renewed.  Lord  Enfield  considers 
himself  and  Lord  George  Hamilton  to  be  what  he  is  pleased  to 
call  "scions  of  a  noble  stock."  I  am  a  man  of  the  middle  class. 
He  considers  himself  my  superior.  Let  us  agree  to  differ  on  this 
point. — Yours  truly, 

HENRY  LABOUCHERE. 

"It  is  fortunate,"  remarked  the  Times,  "  that  the  Liberal 
majority  bids  fair  to  be  a  large  one,  for  otherwise  the  future 
historians  of  Great  Britain  might  have  a  somewhat  un- 
dignified episode  to  narrate  in  the  electioneering  contest  of 
1868,  between  the  two  great  parties  of  the  State.  If  the 
Liberals  and  the  Conservatives  happened  to  be  running 
each  other  so  closely  that  one  seat  more  or  less  might  deter- 
mine the  policy  of  the  new  Parliament,  the  Middlesex 
election  would  probably  have  an  odd  part  to  play  in  British 
annals.  Every  reader  of  Liberal  imagination  can  easily 
conjure  up  for  himself  a  picture  of  the  calamities  that  might, 
under  evil  stars,  overtake  this  country  if  the  Liberals  found 
themselves  not  strong  enough  to  carry  out  their  present 
programme,  and  the  Irish  Church  were  left  still  standing, 
with  Ireland,  as  the  natural  result  of  so  much  anxious  and 
fruitless  agitation,  more  discontented  than  ever.  Let  him 
then  suppose  that  all  these  imagined  misfortunes  had  to  be 
borne  in  consequence  of  his  party  having  lost  a  seat  for 
Middlesex,  because  Lord  Enfield  objects  'on  personal 
grounds '  to  Mr.  Labouchere !  Lord  Chesterfield  has  told  us 
that  great  events  are  really  due  to  much  smaller  causes  than 
historians,  with  a  duly  jealous  regard  for  the  dignity  of  their 
profession,  dare  admit.  The  Liberal  majority  in  the  next 
Parliament  might,  if  it  so  happened,  be  lost  and  the  pro- 
gramme of  national  policy  at  a  critical  moment  reversed 
because  Mr.  Labouchere  has  called  Lord  Enfield  '  a  sneak, ' 
and  Lord  Enfield  objects  to  Mr.  Labouchere's  want  of  blue 
blood!  We  doubt  whether  Gibbon  himself  could  give  the 
proper  professional  air  of  historical  dignity  to  such  an  episode 


1869]  PARLIAMENTARY  AMBITIONS  89 

in  the  decline  and  fall  of  Great  Britain  as  this.  According 
to  the  first  report  of  this  squabble  we  read,  Lord  Enfield 
distinctly  refused  to  meet  Mr.  Labouchere,  while  Mr. 
Labouchere,  after  showing  that  he  had  hitherto  all  along 
conducted  himself  as  a  very  model  of  meekness,  bearing 
endless  snubs  and  rebuffs  from  his  haughty  adversary  for  the 
public  good,  suddenly  turned  round  and  insisted  that  he 
would  'fight  single-handed'  without  any  reference  to  his 
brother  Liberal.  It  appears  that,  if  the  Liberals  work 
properly,  the  Conservative  candidate,  despite  all  the  ad- 
vantages of  high  birth  and  impetuous  youth,  ought  to  be 
beaten,  but  that  otherwise  he  has  a  chance  of  success.  It 
would  be  too  bad  if  a  Liberal  seat  were  thus  endangered, 
and  we  trust  Lord  Enfield  will  accept  Mr.  Labouchere's 
compromise,  and  console  himself  by  reflecting  that  he  can 
still  object  as  strenuously  as  ever  to  his  plebeian  adversary 
in  private."1 

Lord  Enfield  protested  angrily  in  the  next  day's  Times 
against  the  accusation  of  having  referred  to  himself  as  a 
"scion  of  a  noble  house,"  and,  oddly  enough,  his  letter  ap- 
peared just  below  one  sent  to  the  paper  by  the  Committee 
of  the  Reform  Club : 

THE  REFORM  CLUB,  Monday  Evening. 

The  Committee  of  the  Reform  Club  having,  in  consequence 
of  the  suggestions  which  have  been  made  to  them,  taken  into 
consideration  the  differences  between  Lord  Enfield  and  myself, 
and  having  expressed  an  opinion  that  it  is  due  to  Lord  Enfield 
that  I  should  withdraw  certain  offensive  expressions  which  I  used 
concerning  him,  and  that  I  should  now  express  my  regret  for 
having  used  them,  and,  as  I  am  now  informed  by  the  Committee 
that  they  have  ascertained  from  Lord  Enfield  that  he  had  no 
intention  of  doubting  my  word,  as  I  imagined  he  did,  on  the 
occasion  I  referred  to,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  at  once  acting  on 
the  advice  of  the  Committee. 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

»  Times,  November  14,  1868. 


90  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1866- 

A  patch  was  thus  temporarily  placed  over  the  breach,  for 
the  benefit  of  the  public,  but  the  electors  of  Middlesex  had  no 
delusions  on  the  subject. 

The  meeting  for  the  nomination  of  candidates  at  Brent- 
ford was  a  rowdy  affair,  the  proceedings  being  of  a  most 
disorderly  nature.  The  re-election  of  Lord  Enfield  was 
proposed  and  the  proposition  was  received  with  groans  and 
hisses.  Then  Labouchere's  re-election  was  proposed.  At 
that  point  the  disorder  became  uncontrollable.  The  inter- 
ruption had  commenced  with  the  appearance  of  a  band  of 
roughs,  wearing  the  Conservative  card  in  their  hats,  who 
began  to  hoot  and  groan  at  the  Liberal  speakers.  After  this 
had  gone  on  for  a  few  minutes,  another  band,  not  quite  so 
numerous,  but  of  the  same  low  class,  poured  into  the  square, 
bearing  the  Liberal  cards  on  their  hats.  The  two  rival 
factions  severally  hooted  the  speaker  on  the  opposite  side. 
The  roughs  who  were  first  in  the  field  (the  Conservatives  had 
engaged  a  band  of  a  hundred  roughs,  seven  of  whom  were 
known  to  be  prize-fighters)  then  began  to  hustle  the  others, 
and  had  nearly  borne  them  out  of  the  square,  when  the  police 
made  a  charge  upon  them,  but  without  using  their  staves,  and 
for  a  moment  restored  order.  The  same  disorderly  conduct 
was,  however,  renewed  and  several  fights  took  place  under 
the  eyes  of  the  sheriffs.  The  crowd  swayed  to  and  fro,  and 
the  din  and  uproar  was  so  continuous  and  incessant  that  the 
rest  of  the  proceedings  had  to  be  carried  on  in  dumb  show. 
When  the  sheriff  called  for  a  show  of  hands  for  Lord  Enfield 
every  hand  on  the  right  of  a  line  drawn  from  the  centre  of  the 
hustings  was  held  up.  For  Mr.  Labouchere  about  the  same 
number  seemed  to  go  up.  For  Lord  George  Hamilton  all  the 
hands  on  the  left  of  the  line  went  up.  The  numbers  seemed 
pretty  nearly  divided.  It  at  first  appeared  that  Mr.  Labou- 
chere had  the  show  of  hands,  and  the  sheriffs  had,  it  was  be- 
lieved, decided,  or  were  about  to  decide,  in  his  favour,  when  it 
was  pointed  out  to  them  that  many  Conservatives  had  held  up 
their  hands  for  Lord  Enfield,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  all  the 


1869]  PARLIAMENTARY  AMBITIONS  91 

Liberals  had  held  up  both  their  hands  for  Mr.  Labouchere. 
The  sheriffs,  after  consultation,  accordingly  declared  that 
the  show  of  hands  was  in  favour  of  Lord  Enfield  and  Lord 
George  Hamilton. 

The  election  took  place  on  November  24,  and  the  result 
of  the  poll  was  as  follows: 

Lord  George  Hamilton        .         .         .  7638  votes 

Lord  Enfield 6387     " 

Mr.  Labouchere         ....  6297 

Before  the  declaration  of  the  poll,  two  cabs  with  placards 
of  "  Plump  for  Enfield"  were  seen  in  the  streets,  which  were 
followed  by  others  bearing  "  Plump  for  Labouchere. "  This 
was  believed  to  have  been  a  ruse  of  the  enemy,  but  there  were 
some  who  thought  it  was  a  joke  of  Labouchere's.  He  how- 
ever vehemently  denied  any  knowledge  of  it.  There  was 
huge  excitement  at  the  official  declaration  of  the  poll. 
Henry  Labouchere,  "the  real  Liberal  candidate,"  as  he  was 
called,  had  been  met  by  his  friends  at  Kew  Bridge,  who  had 
accompanied  him  to  the  meeting.  He  was  evidently  the 
favourite, x  and  the  populace  took  out  his  horses  and  insisted 
upon  dragging  his  carriage  through  the  town.  Enfield  was 
hissed  and  hooted.  Labouchere  made  a  dignified  speech, 
in  which  he  referred  to  the  practical  disenfranchisement  of 
Middlesex,  by  its  election  of  a  Conservative  and  a  Liberal, 
and  he  insisted  strongly  and  ably  upon  the  necessity  of 
organisation  in  all  electioneering  work. 

Mr.  Labouchere  published  the  following  absurd  reminis- 
cence of  this  election  in  an  early  number  of  Truth:  "A 
candidate  knows  very  little  of  the  details  of  his  election,  but, 
so  far  as  I  could  make  out,  dead  men  played  a  very  important 
part,  on  both  sides,  in  this  contest  between  Lord  George  and 
me.  No  sooner  were  the  booths  open  than  men  long  re- 

1  Times,  November  27,  1868. 


92  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1866- 

moved  from  party  strife  rose  from  their  graves,  and  hurriedly 
voted  either  for  him  or  for  me. "  * 

An  amusing  episode  of  the  Middlesex  election  of  1868  was 
the  mistake  which  the  supporters  of  Mr.  Labouchere  made 
in  mistaking  Mr.  Henry  Irving  for  their  defeated  candidate. 
Mr.  Labouchere  himself  related  the  story  some  sixteen 
years  later,  when  there  was  a  report  current  that  the  famous 
actor  was  about  to  offer  himself  as  a  parliamentary  candi- 
date. "Irving  did  once  appear  upon  the  hustings, "  he  said, 
"and  it  was  in  this  wise.  I  was  the  defeated  candidate  at  a 
Middlesex  election.  Those  were  the  days  of  hustings  and 
displays,  and  it  was  the  fashion  for  each  candidate  to  go 
down  to  Brentford  in  a  carriage  and  four  to  thank  his 
supporters.  On  the  morning  of  the  day  when  I  had  to 
perform  this  function,  Irving  called  upon  me,  and  I  invited 
him  to  accompany  me.  Down  we  drove.  I  made  an  in- 
audible speech  to  a  mob,  and  we  re-entered  our  carriage  to 
return  to  London.  In  a  large  constituency  like  Middlesex, 
few  know  the  candidates  by  sight.  Irving  felt  it  his  duty  to 
assume  a  mine  de  cir Constance.  He  folded  his  arms,  pressed 
his  hat  over  his  brows,  and  was  every  inch  the  baffled  politi- 
cian— defeated,  sad,  but  yet  sternly  resigned  to  his  fate.  In 
this  character  he  was  so  impressive  that  the  crowd  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  he  was  the  defeated  candidate.  So  woe- 
begone, and  so  solemnly  dignified,  did  he  look  that  they  were 
overcome  with  emotion,  and,  to  show  their  sympathy,  they 
took  the  horses  out  of  the  carriage  and  dragged  it  back  to 
London.  When  they  left  us,  I  got  up  to  thank  them,  but 
this  did  not  dispel  the  illusion.  'Poor  fellow,'  I  heard 
them  say,  as  they  watched  Irving, '  his  feelings  are  too  much 
for  him, '  and  they  patted  him,  shook  hands  with  him,  and 
thanked  him. " 2 

A  Times  leader  of  November  30  made  the  following 
comments  on  the  Middlesex  election:  "In  Middlesex,  the 
minority  has  been  allowed  not  only  a  representative,  but  a 

1  Truth,  April,  1878.  «  Truth,  April  24,  1884. 


1869]  PARLIAMENTARY  AMBITIONS  93 

place  at  the  head  of  the  poll,  by  the  selection  of  two  Liberal 
candidates,  almost  avowedly  in  competition,  and  with  some 
unexplained  circumstance  of  personal  antagonism.  Though 
it  is  likely  enough  many  of  the  votes  have  been  split  between 
the  two  successful  candidates,  it  is  evident  on  the  face  of  the 
return  that  a  better  selected  pair  of  Liberal  candidates  might 
have  carried  both  seats.  Few  persons  will  quarrel  with  a 
result  which  gives  one  of  the  most  important  minorities  in 
the  kingdom  a  voice  in  Parliament,  but  the  result  is  a  fluke 
rather  than  the  consequence  of  a  sound  intention  or  of  a  wise 
provision  of  law." 

At  the  General  Election  of  1874,  Mr.  Labouchere  made 
another  attempt  to  enter  the  House  of  Commons.  He  first 
offered  himself  at  Southwark,  but,  as  he  was  one  of  six  Liberal 
candidates,  he  withdrew,  and  presented  himself  for  election 
at  Nottingham.  At  Nottingham  also  there  was  a  super- 
fluity of  Liberal  candidates,  but  two  of  these,  Mr.  Labouchere 
and  Mr.  Laycock,  would  probably  have  got  in,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  determined  antagonism  of  Mr.  Heath,  the 
Labour  candidate,  to  Mr.  Labouchere.  It  was  also  asserted 
by  the  leading  Liberals  of  the  place  that  the  seats  were  lost, 
because  Mr.  Labouchere's  advanced  Radicalism  scandalised 
the  Liberal  supporters.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  result  of 
the  election  was  that  two  Conservatives  were  returned  for 
Nottingham.  Mr.  Labouchere  was  as  usual  philosophical 
upon  the  subject  of  his  unsuccessful  election :  "  When  one  is 
in, "  he  said,  "one  wants  to  be  out,  and  when  one  is  out,  one 
wants  to  be  in.  La  Bruyere  says  that  no  married  people 
ever  pass  a  week  without  wishing,  at  least  once,  that  they 
were  unmarried,  and  so  I  suspect  it  is  with  most  M.P.'s. " 

There  were  many  amusing  stories  about  Mr.  Labouchere 
current  at  this  time.  One  of  the  best  that  appeared  in  the 
Nottingham  papers  during  the  election  was  the  following: 
"He  went  to  a  fancy  dress  ball  in  London,  wearing  diplo- 
matic uniform,  and  on  presenting  himself  at  the  door,  he 
was  refused  admission  by  a  policeman.  'Why?'  said  Mr. 


94  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1866-1869] 

Labouchere.  'Because  no  one  is  allowed  here  in  a  diplo- 
matic uniform,'  said  the  'bobby.'  'Confound  your  im- 
pudence,' growled  the  ex-member  for  Middlesex,  'I  will 
go  in.'  'Not  in  diplomatic  dress,  no  one  's  to  pass  here  in 
diplomatic  togs, '  repeated  Mr.  Bluebottle ;  '  my  order  is  to 
watch  this  door  for  that  special  purpose. '  '  What 's  your 
name,  scoundrel?'  yelled  the  financial  editor  of  the  World; 
'my  name  is  Labouchere,  and  I  will  enter.'  'And  mine,' 
rejoined  the  amateur  policeman,  'is  Lionel  Brough. '  They 
walked  upstairs  arm-in-arm  together. " 


CHAPTER  V 
JOURNALISM  AND  THE  STAGE 

(1864-1880) 

AFTER  he  had  been  unseated  for  Windsor,  Mr.  Labou- 
chere  went  abroad  for  some  months,  most  of  which 
time  he  spent  at  Nice.  He  also  went  to  Florence,  and  was  at 
Homburg,  in  1868,  just  before  the  General  Election.  His 
connection  with  journalism  began  at  this  period,  as  he  sent 
frequent  letters  to  the  Daily  News,  both  from  Nice  and 
Florence.  These  were  always  remarkable  for  their  pithiness 
and  wit,  although  he  had  by  no  means  developed  the  style 
which  he  brought  to  perfection  two  years  later  as  "The 
Besieged  Resident, "  and  which  made  his  fame  as  a  journalist. 
In  1868,  he  became  part  proprietor  of  the  Daily  News,  which 
it  was  decided  to  issue  for  the  future  as  a  penny  paper.1 
Sir  John  Robinson  thus  describes  the  syndicate  of  which  Mr. 
Labouchere  became  a  member:  "The  proprietors  of  the 
Daily  News,  a  small  syndicate  which  never  exceeded  ten 
men,  were  a  mixed  body,  hardly  any  two  of  whom  had 
anything  in  common.  The  supreme  control  in  the  ultimate 
resort  rested  with  three  of  them,  Mr.  Henry  Oppenheim,  the 
well-known  financier,  with  politics  of  no  very  decided  kind; 
Mr.  Arnold  Morley,  a  Right  Honourable,  an  ex-party  Whip, 

'The  Daily  News  was  the  first  Liberal  daily  paper  to  be  published  in  London 
and  at  first  cost  fivepence.     It  was  afterwards  reduced  to  threepence. 

95 


96  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1864- 

and  a  typical  ministerial  Liberal;  and  Mr.  Labouchere,  the 
Radical,  financier,  freelance.  Others  had  but  a  small  holding, 
and  practically  did  not  count,  save  as  regards  any  moral 
influence  they  might  bring  to  bear  on  their  colleagues  at 
Board  meetings. " x 

The  new  editor  selected  for  the  penny  Daily  News  was 
Mr.  Frank  Hill,  but  the  paper  was  run  at  a  loss  until  the 
winter  of  1870,  when  the  special  war  news  published  in  its 
columns  caused  the  circulation  to  increase  in  one  week  from 
50,000  to  150,000.  Mr.  Robinson,  its  far-seeing  manager, 
attributed  the  success  of  the  paper,  at  this  period,  first,  to  the 
excellence  of  his  correspondents,  and  secondly,  to  his  having 
insisted  upon  having  the  whole  of  his  news  telegraphed  to 
London,  instead  of  being  transmitted  by  the  post.  The 
number  of  the  correspondents  on  the  staff  of  the  Daily  News 
during  the  war  was  seventeen,  of  which  the  chief  was  Mr. 
Archibald  Forbes,  who  may  be  rightly  described  as  a  prince 
among  journalists.  Henry  Labouchere  too  had  the  main 
heureuse  where  newspapers  were  concerned.  His  Paris 
letters  were  eagerly  read  all  over  the  civilised  world,  the 
excitement  and  interest  created  by  them  being  even  more 
vehement  in  America  than  in  London.  The  fortune  of  the 
Daily  News  was  made,2  and  from  then  onwards  for  many 
years  the  great  organ  of  Liberalism  grew  and  flourished. 
When  Mr.  Labouchere  sold  his  share3  in  1895  he  did  so  at  a 
large  profit.  As  I  shall  not  have  occasion  to  return  again  to 
Mr.  Labouchere's  financial  connection  with  the  Daily  News, 

1  Sir  John  Robinson,  Fifty  Years  of  Fleet  Street. 

*  It  was  humorously  said  at  the  period  that  Mr.  Robinson  (the  Manager 
of  the  Daily  News)  and  Count  Bismarck  were  the  only  persons  who  had  gained 
by  the  war,  and  that  only  the  former  deserved  to  do  so. 

*  Mr.  Labouchere  gave  the  following  reasons  for  severing  his  connection 
with  the  Daily  News.     "On  Mr.  Gladstone's  withdrawal  from  public  life,"  he 
wrote  in  Truth,  "  the  party,  or  rather  a  majority  of  the  officialdom  of  the 
party  became  tainted  with  Birmingham  imperialism.    My  convictions  did  not 
allow  me  to  be  connected  with  a  newspaper  which  supported  a  clique  of  in- 
triguers that  had  captured  the  Liberal  ship,  and  that  accepted  blindly  these 
intriguers  as  the  representatives  of  Liberalism  in  regard  to  our  foreign  policy." 


i88o]  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  STAGE  97 

I  shall  give  in  this  place  an  account  Mr.  Lionel  Robinson 
recently  wrote  to  me  of  the  transaction:  "So  many  contra- 
dictory statements  have  been  put  forward  in  the  press  with 
reference  to  the  late  Mr.  Labouchere's  pecuniary  interest  in 
the  Daily  News,  that  you  may  not  be  unwilling  to  find  space 
for  the  recollections  of  one  who  heard  at  the  time,  and  sub- 
sequently, various  versions  of  the  story.  My  own  impression, 
derived  from  personal  intercourse,  is  that  some  time  about 
1868  or  a  little  later,  Mr.  Labouchere  purchased  a  quarter 
share  in  the  newspaper  for  about  £14,000,  and  further,  that 
the  vendor  was  Mr.  Henry  Rawson  of  Manchester.  I  do 
not  pretend  to  know  what  were  the  annual  profits  of  the 
paper,  beyond  the  fact  that  they  increased  enormously 
during  the  twenty  years  dating  from  the  Austro-Prussian 
War  and  its  subsequent  developments.  It  was,  therefore, 
not  surprising  that  when  Mr.  Labouchere  decided  to  sell  his 
share  in  the  paper  it  should  have  commanded  a  high  price. 
I  have  heard  it,  from  a  certain  distance  of  time  from  the 
event,  placed  as  high  as  £92,000,  but  my  personal  recollec- 
tion is  that  the  sum  mentioned  by  Mr.  Labouchere  was 
£62,000  or  thereabouts." 

In  one  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  letters  from  Nice  to  the 
Daily  News  he  gave  a  characteristic  account  of  some  of  his 
compatriots  abroad.  The  following  quotation  from  it  will 
show  the  reader  that,  if  he  had  not  yet  acquired  the  style  of 
his  later  work,  the  spirit  of  it  was  very  active — the  spirit 
which  made  him  hate  mediocrity  and  pretentiousness: 
"  Here,  as  in  almost  every  foreign  watering-place,  there  is  a 
colony  of  English  Bohemians,  who  live  among  themselves, 
give  each  other  tea  parties  and  such  mild  festivities,  frequent 
charity  and  other  public  balls,  abuse  each  other  and  every 
one  else,  pet  the  English  clergyman  or  denounce  his  doctrines, 
worry  their  Consul  with  every  kind  of  complaint  and  re- 
quirement, and  keep  up  a  gallant  and  hopeless  struggle  to 
penetrate  into  foreign  society.  As  most  of  them  only  speak 
their  own  language,  as  the  men,  who,  no  doubt,  have  many 


98  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1864- 

solid  virtues,  are  devoid  of  the.  art  of  pleasing  in  a  mixed 
society,  and  the  women,  pillars  as  they  are  of  virtue,  have 
little  of  the  Siren  about  them,  foreign  society  does  not  re- 
spond to  their  advances. " x 

Labouchere  was  not  so  successful  over  his  speculation  in 
theatre  property.  In  the  October  of  1867,  Messrs.  Telbin 
and  Moore  did  up  the  New  Queen's  Theatre,  formerly  St. 
Martin's  Hall,  in  Long  Acre,  and  it  was  opened  under  the 
management  of  Mr.  Alfred  Wigan,  one  of  the  most  accom- 
plished comedians  of  the  day.  Mr.  Alfred  Wigan  had  a 
mysterious  partner  in  management,  and  Herman  Meri- 
vale,  who  had  written  a  most  successful  farce,  as  the  curtain 
raiser  for  the  new  theatre,  gives  a  charming  little  account  of 
his  discovery  of  the  identity  of  the  mysterious  personage. 
Alfred  Wigan  soon  wanted  some  melodrama  for  the  theatre, 
and  Merivale  wrote  a  play.  Wigan  told  him  that  he  must 
submit  it  to  his  partner.  "Two  or  three  days  afterwards, " 
writes  Merivale,  "I  was  sent  in  fear  and  trembling  to  the 
manager's  room  at  the  Queen's,  to  meet  the  mysterious 
partner.  I  was  introduced,  and,  sitting  at  the  table  with  a 
cigarette  in  his  mouth,  I  saw  Labouchere.  '  Good  Lord ! '  he 
said,  'are  you  the  eminent  author?'  'Heavens!'  quoth  I, 
'  are  you  the  mysterious  partner? ' 

"Both  of  us  had  carefully  concealed  our  hidden  sin  at  the 
dinner  party. 2  What  struck  me  most  was  a  small  array  of 
bills  of  the  new  play  hung  all  round,  each  printed  with  a 
different  title,  that  the  mysterious  partner  might  see  which 
looked  best.  It  was,  at  all  events,  bold  expenditure.  Time 
and  the  Hour  was  the  title  that  the  authors 3  had  hit  upon ; 
and  Labouchere  decided  that  it  should  be  chosen.  'It  's 
a  splendid  title,  I  think,'  he  said.  'Delighted  that  you 


1  Daily  News,  Feb.  8,  1869. 

»  Merivale  and  Labouchere  had  recently  met  at  a  dinner  party  at  the  house 
of  the  former's  father. 

» Merivale  had  collaborated  with  Palgrave  Simpson  in  the  construction 
of  the  play. 


i88o]  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  STAGE  99 

say  so, '  was  my  flattered  answer.  '  It  really  is,  you  know. 
Do  for  any  play  whatever  that  ever  was  written.' " ' 

Time  and  the  Hour,  as  it  turned  out,  was,  in  its  way,  a  kind 
of  curiosity.  For  the  cast  comprised,  besides Wigan  himself, 
a  whole  bouquet  of  coming  managers,  some  of  whom  were  at 
the  beginning  of  their  professional  careers.  There  were  J.  L. 
Toole,  Lionel  B rough,  John  Clayton,  and  Charles  Wyndham. 
Other  plays  acted  at  the  Queen's  Theatre  under  Mr.  Labou- 
chere's  management  were  Tom  Taylor's  Twixt  Axe  and 
Crown,  and  H.  J.  Byron's  Dearer  than  Life.  In  the  former 
the  lovely  Mrs.  Wybert  Rousby  flashed  for  the  first  time  in 
her  full  beauty  on  the  London  stage,  and  in  the  latter  the 
cast  included  Henry  Irving,  J.  L.  Toole,  John  Clayton, 
Lionel  Brough,  and  Charles  Wyndham,  and  last,  but  most 
important  of  all,  as  Lucy,  that  clever  artist  and  fascinating 
personality,  Henrietta  Hodson,  who  afterwards  became  Mrs. 
Labouchere.  Another  star  at  the  Queen's  Theatre,  during 
the  first  year  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  management,  was  Ellen 
Terry.  She  thus  describes  herself  playing  there  in  the 
Double  Marriage.  "As  Rose  de  Beaurepaire, "  she  writes, 
"  I  wore  a  white  muslin  Directoire  dress  and  looked  absurdly 
young.  There  was  one  curtain  which  used  to  convulse 
Wyndham.  He  had  a  line,  'Whose  child  is  this?'  and  there 
was  I  looking  a  mere  child  myself,  and  with  a  bad  cold  in  my 
head  too,  answering:  'It 's  bine!'  The  very  thought  of  it 
used  to  send  us  off  into  fits  of  laughter.  "* 

A  contemporary  picture  of  Mr.  Labouchere  at  this  time  is 
given  by  Mr.  George  Augustus  Sala,  in  his  Life  and  Adven- 
tures. Mr.  Labouchere  had  begged  Sala  to  write  him  a  play, 
full  of  exciting  situations.  "An  appointment  was  made  with 
him,"  said  Sala,  "to  meet  Halliday  (another  dramatic  au- 
thor) and  myself  at  ten  o'clock  one  evening  at  the  Queen's 
Theatre.  He  was  then  one  of  the  members  for  the  County  of 
Middlesex.  He  struck  me  as  being  in  all  respects  a  remark- 

1  Herman  Merivale,  Bar,  Stage,  and  Platform. 
1  Ellen  Terry,  The  Story  of  my  Life. 


ioo  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1864- 

able  man,  full  of  varied  knowledge,  full  withal  of  humorous 
anecdotes,  and  with  a  mother  wit  very  pleasant  to  listen  to. 
His  conversation  was  to  me  additionally  interesting,  because, 
when  I  was  in  Mexico,  I  had  gone  over  most  of  the  ground 
which  he  had  travelled." 

The  first  numbers  of  Truth  abound  with  news  of  the 
Queen's  Theatre,  and  the  unvarnished  accounts  Mr.  La- 
bouchere  gave  of  the  contretemps  that  occurred  during  his 
management,  and  the  strange,  unexpected  things  that 
happened,  possibly  contributed  to  the  lack  of  consideration 
he  experienced  as  a  theatrical  manager.  Here  is  part  of  an 
article  devoted  to  the  art  of  the  stage,  published  during  the 
first  year  of  Truth:  "The  play  on  which  I  lost  most  was  an 
adaptation  of  The  Last  Days  of  Pompeii.  Everything  went 
wrong  in  this  piece.  I  wanted  to  have — after  the  manner  of 
the  ancients — acrobats  dancing  on  the  tight  rope  over  the 
heads  of  the  guests  at  a  feast.  The  guests,  however,  ab- 
solutely declined  to  be  danced  over.  Only  one  acrobat  made 
his  appearance.  A  rope  was  stretched  for  him,  behind  the 
revellers,  and  I  trusted  to  stage  illusion  for  the  rest.  The 
acrobat  was  a  stout  negro.  Instead  of  lightly  tripping  it 
upon  his  rope,  he  moved  about  like  an  elephant,  and  finally 
fell  off  his  rope,  like  a  stricken  buffalo.  In  the  second  act 
the  head  of  a  statue  was  to  fall  off,  and  to  crush  Mr.  Ryder, 
who  was  a  magician.  There  was  a  man  inside  the  statue, 
whose  mission  was  to  push  over  its  head.  With  folded  arms 
and  stern  air,  Mr.  Ryder  gazed  at  the  statue,  awaiting  the 
portentous  event  that  was  to  crush  him  to  the  earth,  not- 
withstanding the  mystic  power  that  he  wielded.  The  head 
remained  firm  on  its  neck.  The  man  inside  had  solaced 
himself  with  so  much  beer,  that  he  was  drunk  and  incapable, 
and  Mr.  Ryder  had,  much  to  the  amazement  of  the  audience, 
to  knock  down  the  head  that  was  to  crush  him.  In  the  third 
act  the  stage  represented  a  Roman  amphitheatre.  In  the 
midst  of  a  gorgeously  dressed  crowd  sat  Mr.  Ryder.  '  Bring 
forth  the  lion!'  he  said.  The  audience  thrilled  at  the  idea 


i88o]  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  STAGE  101 

of  a  real  lion  being  marched  on  to  the  stage.  Now  I  had  no 
lion,  and  I  had  discarded  the  idea  of  putting  a  lion  skin  on  a 
donkey.  An  attendant  therefore  walked  in  and  said,  'Sir, 
the  lion  will  not  come.'  Those  of  the  audience  who  were 
not  hissing,  roared  with  laughter.  The  last  act  was  to  re- 
present the  eruption  of  Vesuvius  and  the  destruction  of 
Pompeii.  The  mountain  had  only  been  painted  just  in  time 
for  the  'first  night.'  I  had  never  seen  it.  What  was  my 
horror  when  the  curtain  rose  upon  a  temple  with  a  sort  of 
large  sugar  loaf  behind  it.  At  first  I  could  not  imagine  what 
was  the  meaning  of  this  sugar  loaf.  But  when  it  proceeded  to 
emit  crackers  I  found  that  it  was  Vesuvius!"1 

Sometimes  he  let  the  theatre,  and  on  that  subject  he  was 
almost  pathetic:  "Whenever  this  theatre  is  to  let,"  he 
wrote,  "I  am  complimented  by  numerous  persons  with 
proposals  which  prove  that  I  am  regarded  by  them  as  the 
most  credulous  and  confiding  of  human  beings — hardly 
indeed  a  human  being,  but  a  simple,  convenient  lamb  .  .  . 
nothing  that  I  can  do  convinces  them  that  I  am  not  a  lamb 
covered  with  nice  long  wool  and  eager  to  be  shorn.  On  these 
occasions  I  remember  that  the  tempering  of  the  wind  to  the 
shorn  lamb  is,  after  all,  but  a  poetical  figure,  and  therefore 
I  take  care  to  meet  the  tempest  with  a  fleece  on  my  back."* 
He  had  not  a  high  opinion  of  dramatic  artists,  as  men  of 
business.  "I  confess,"  he  said,  "that  for  my  own  part  I 
have  never  understood  the  meaning  of  high  art  in  its  dignified 
aspect.  I  never,  in  the  course  of  my  existence,  came  across 
one  of  its  votaries — painter,  sculptor,  author,  or  architect — 
who  was  ready  to  sacrifice  one  farthing  of  his  own  at  its 
shrine.  I  once  was  the  owner  of  a  theatre,  and  I  was  per- 
petually at  war  with  authors  and  actors  who  wanted  me  to 
ruin  myself  on  the  altar  of  high  art,  but  I  soon  found  that 
this  was  a  term  which  they  used  for  their  own  fads.  Once  I 
produced  a  play  by  Charles  Reade.  It  was  a  failure,  and 
on  the  first  night  I  was  sitting  with  him  in  a  box.  'They 

1  Truth,  August  16,  1877.  » Ibid.,  June  12,  1877. 


102  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1864- 

seem  to  be  hissing,  Mr.  Reade, '  I  said.  'What  of  that?'  he 
replied;  'if  you  want  to  please  such  a  public  as  this,  you 
should  not  come  to  me  for  a  play."'1  He  had  an  amusing 
story  too  to  relate  of  how  he  rode  roughshod  over  Tom 
Taylor's  artistic  prejudices  by  insisting  upon  a  chemical  fire 
being  lit  upon  the  stage  at  his  production  of  the  latter's  Joan 
of  Arc,  in  the  flames  of  which  the  heroine  (Mrs.  Rousby)  was 
to  perish  realistically,  instead  of  being  wafted  to  Heaven  in 
the  arms  of  angels,  as  the  author  had  planned  she  should  be. 
But  the  story  of  his  theatre-management  days  that  he  was 
fondest  of  telling  was  in  connection  with  the  late  Sir  Henry 
Irving.  The  latter,  at  a  big  banquet  he  gave  to  a  party  of  his 
friends,  was  relating  some  of  the  events  of  his  professional 
career.  "And  to  think,  Labby, "  he  said,  turning  to  his  old 
friend,  "that  I  was  once  receiving  five  pounds  a  week  from 
you!"  "Three  pounds,  Henry,  my  boy,"  retorted  Labou- 
chere  quickly,  "only  three." 

He  professed  the  greatest  contempt,  and  considering  the 
financial  failure  of  his  management  of  the  Queen's  Theatre, 
perhaps  naturally  so,  for  those  stingy  votaries  of  pleasure 
who  were  always  cadging  him  for  orders  for  his  theatre. 
"Theirs,"  he  said,  "is  the  meanest,  most  sneaky  and  con- 
temptible form  of  beggary. "  But  he  got  the  better  of  one 
of  these  beggars.  One  day  his  tailor  asked  him  for  an  order. 
He  sent  it  to  him,  but  the  next  morning  he  sent  the  tailor  an 
"order"  entitling  the  bearer  to  a  new  suit  of  clothes.  The 
tailor,  realising  the  tit  for  tat,  sensibly  complied  with  the 
request,  but  ever  afterwards  bought  his  tickets  for  the 
"Queen's"  in  the  conventional  manner.  Another  set  of 
persons  who  encountered  his  righteous  wrath  in  his  theatre 
days  were  the  would-be  dramatic  authors.  He  described 
how  hundreds  of  worthless  plays  were  sent  him,  resembling, 
in  their  incoherence  and  lack  of  perspective,  the  crude  pencil 
drawings  of  infants.  He  gave  in  Truth  the  opening  of  one  of 
them,  further  than  which,  he  explained,  he  did  not  read: 

1  Truth,  Nov.  12,  1887. 


i88o]  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  STAGE  103 

"  The  broad  Mississippi  is  seen  rolling  its  turbid  flood  towards 
the  ocean,  and  carrying  with  it  the  debris  of  a  village. 
Steamers  come  and  go  on  its  surface.  On  a  frail  raft  a  man 
and  a  woman  are  crossing  the  river.  Enter  the  negroes 
from  a  plantation  monotonously  singing."1 

He  attributed  the  failure  of  his  own  adaptation  of  Sar- 
dou's  La  Patrie  to  the  narrow  powers  of  appreciation  pos- 
sessed by  Londoners.  "They  fancy,"  he  wrote,  "that  no 
drama  or  melodrama  can  be  good,  which  does  not  conform 
to  certain  rules.  The  heroine  must  be  the  purest  and  the 
best  of  her  sex;  she  must  engage  in  a  struggle  with  adverse 
circumstances,  and  with  bad  men;  and  she  must  emerge,  in 
the  last  act,  triumphant.  The  audience,  in  fact,  must  leave 
the  theatre,  not  only  pleased  with  her  acting,  but  with  her. 
Now,  the  heroine  of  Fatherland  is  Dolores,  and  the  plot  turns 
upon  her  betrayal  of  her  husband.  This  was  fatal  to  the 
success  of  the  play,  but  it  is  an  open  question  whether  it 
ought  to  have  been  fatal  to  it.  Conventionalism  is  the  bane 
of  advance  in  art. " 

All  things  considered,  it  was  not  surprising  that  Mr. 
Labouchere's  proprietorship  of  the  Queen's  Theatre  was  a 
financial  failure.  Joseph  Hatton  gives  a  curious  description 
of  the  way  in  which  Mr.  Labouchere  managed  the  business, 
the  facts  of  which  he  got  from  the  same  personal  interview 
already  quoted:  "Sometimes  he  brought  out  plays  himself. 
He  generally  lost  by  them,  but  now  and  then  had  a  success. 
Occasionally  in  the  preparations  for  a  new  production  he 
would  go  abroad.  When  particularly  wanted  by  the  manage- 
ment, he  could  not  be  found.  The  work  went  on,  however, 
all  the  same,  and  so  did  the  loss.  Once  he  was  advised  to 
cram  the  house  for  a  week  with  orders,  so  that  nobody  could 
get  in.  The  traditional  'Full'  was  posted  at  all  the  en- 
trances. He  did  this  on  condition  that,  after  a  week,  every 
one  should  be  compelled  to  pay.  When  the  second  week 
came  the  house  was  empty.  Then  the  actors  complained. 

1  Truth,  November  8,  1877. 


104  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1864- 

They  could  not  act  to  empty  benches.  'Why  don't  you 
draw?'  was  Labouchere's  reply  to  their  grievance.  'Draw! 
confound  it!  Why  don't  you  draw?'  He  announced 
Shakespearean  revivals,  proposing  to  produce  one  new  play 
of  the  bard's  in  splendid  style  every  year.  Notices  were  put 
up  at  all  the  entrances,  inviting  the  audiences  to  vote  on  the 
piece.  For  a  long  time  he  worked  up  quite  an  excitement  by 
posting  up  the  result  of  the  voting.  'This  was  a  capital 
idea;  it  increased  the  number  who  paid  at  the  door  im- 
mensely.' Nevertheless  the  Queen's  did  not  prove  a 
success,  and  it  has  lately  been  converted  into  a  co-operative 
store."1 

At  every  period  of  his  life,  Mr.  Labouchere  displayed  all 
the  happiest  characteristics  of  the  Bohemian,  or,  what  comes 
to  the  same  thing,  the  instincts  of  the  real  aristocrat.  He  was 
comfortably  at  home  in  whatever  social  milieu  he  happened 
to  find  himself — a  camp  of  nomadic  Indians,  a  Court  ball,  a 
rowdy  hustings,  the  manager's  room  of  a  London  theatre, 
the  vie  intime  of  a  royal  country  house,  or  the  bourgeois 
domesticity  of  a  thrifty  German  home — and  he  was  welcomed 
and  appreciated  in  every  one  of  them — except  by  the  prigs 
and  the  bores. 

He  knew  his  London  well.  "I  have  lived  in  London 
many  years.  I  have  known  the  seamy  side  of  London  life  for 
far  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  am  familiar  with 
every  detail  of  the  'old  days'  as  they  are  called.  I  can 
compare  the  present  with  the  past,  decency  with  disgust, 
order  with  license,  and  remember  the  time  when  we  supped 
in  a  cellar  under  the  Portico,  where  the  Pall  Mall  restaurant 
now  stands,  when  the  Haymarket  cafes  were  open  as  long  as 
customers  patronised  them.  I  can  recall  the  nights  when 
Panton  Street  and  Jermyn  Street  were  lined  with  watchmen 
and  confederates,  and  admittance  was  only  gained  to  certain 
favoured  meeting-places  by  giving  a  sign,  or  peeping  through 
a  slit  in  the  door  or  guichet.  ...  I  have  seen  a  Chancellor 

1  Joseph  Hatton,  Journalistic  London. 


i88o]  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  STAGE  105 

and  a  Cabinet  Minister  watching  with  amused  gaze  a  scene, 
which  was  at  least  decorous  on  the  surface,  at  the  Argyll 
Rooms  in  Windmill  Street,  and,  listening  to  excellent  music, 
I  have  sat  unnoticed  up  in  the  corner  of  the  old  Holborn 
Casino,  where  the  Holborn  restaurant  now  stands.  I  have 
seen  some  wild  scenes  at  the  Foley  Street  rooms  (Mott's) 
in  the  early  hours  of  the  morning,  and  hideous  scenes  at  222 
Piccadilly — the  'Pic'  as  it  was  then  called — since  pulled 
down  and  destroyed  for  the  now  palatial  Criterion.  In  the 
warm  summer  nights  I  have  driven  down  to  Cremorne,  and 
wandered  there  till  the  daylight,  in  lilac  and  purple,  came  out 
above  the  tall  trees  and  put  out  the  yellow  glare  of  the  gas. 
I  have  even  condescended  to  the  decorous  dissipation  of 
Caldwell's  dancing  rooms,  beloved  by  milliners,  and  now 
turned  into  a  National  School.  I  have  been  an  eye-witness 
of  the  ups  and  downs  of  London  life,  and  the  so-called 
humours  of  the  West  End.  I  have  observed  the  contest 
between  common-sense  and  prudery,  between  the  men  of 
liberal  mind  and  those  determined  to  make  the  vicious 
virtuous  by  Act  of  Parliament.  I  have  lived  through  the 
changes  of  licensing  rules  and  closing  hours,  and  seen  one 
place  of  amusement  after  another  shut  up  and  confiscated — 
the  decorous  tarred  with  the  same  brush  as  the  dirty. 
Cremorne  and  the  Holborn  Casino  bombarded  equally  with 
Mott's  and  the  Piccadilly  Saloon,  ..."  he  wrote  in  the 
course  of  an  article,  which  ended  with  one  of  the  most 
powerful  indictments  of  British  virtue  ever  published, x  and 
it  was  during  the  sixteen  years  that  elapsed  between  his 
departure  from  the  Diplomatic  Service  and  his  entrance  to 
the  House  as  the  "Christian"  member  for  Northampton 
that  he  acquired  most  of  his  vast  experimental  knowledge 
of  the  artistic  and  vagabond  side  of  human  nature  about 
town. 

He  was  close  upon  fifty  when  he  entered  upon  his  serious 
Parliamentary  life,  which  was,  as  all  who  knew  him  well  are 

•  "  The  Ghastly  Gaymarket,"  Truth,  Dec.  8,  1881. 


106  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1864- 

aware,  but  a  phase,  though  an  important  one,  in  his  extra- 
ordinarily varied  career.  Three  episodes  stand  out  with 
clearness,  apart  from  his  abortive  electioneering  experiences 
already  described,  in  the  years  between  1864  and  his  first 
Northampton  election — his  residence  in  Paris  throughout  the 
siege,  his  connection  with  the  World,  as  its  financial  editor, 
and  his  founding  of  his  own  weekly  publication,  Truth.  The 
first  of  these  is  described  in  a  separate  chapter,  and  so,  with 
equal  necessity,  is  the  third.  For  an  account  of  how  he  came 
to  be  on  the  staff  of  the  World  we  must  go  to  the  Recollections 
of  the  late  Mr.  Edmund  Yates  himself,  who  relates  that, 
previous  to  launching  the  first  number  of  his  journal  upon 
the  public,  he  had  issued  a  very  original  prospectus.  "  I  had 
also  sent  a  prospectus  to  Mr.  Henry  Labouchere,"  he  con- 
tinued, "with  whom  I  had  a  slight  acquaintance,  and  whose 
services  as  a  literary  freelance  might,  I  thought,  be  utilised. 
Some  days  after,  I  saw  Mr.  Labouchere  on  the  Cup  Day  at 
Ascot,  seated  on  the  box  of  a  coach.  I  asked  him  if  he  had 
heard  from  me,  and  he  said,  'Oh,  yes,'  adding  that  he 
'thought  the  prospectus  very  funny.'  'But,'  I  said,  'will 
you  help  us  in  carrying  it  out — will  you  be  one  of  us?' 
'You  don't  mean  to  say,'  he  replied,  'that  you  actually 
mean  to  start  a  paper  of  the  kind  set  forth?'  I  told  him 
most  assuredly  we  did,  and  that  we  wanted  his  assistance. 
He  laughed  more  than  ever,  and  said  he  would  let  me  know 
about  it.  A  few  days  after,  I  heard  from  him,  proposing  to 
write  a  series  of  city  articles,  which  he  actually  commenced 
in  the  second  number." 

Labouchere's  preliminary  article  in  the  World1  was 
extremely  droll.  It  began  as  follows :  "  Some  years  ago,  Mr. 
John  F.  Walker,  having  derived  a  considerable  fortune  from 
cheating  at  cards  in  Mississippi  steamboats,  determined  to 
enjoy  his  well-earned  gains  in  his  native  city  of  New  York, 
and  purchased  an  excellent  house  in  that  metropolis.  In 
order  to  add  to  his  income  he  advertised  that  he  was  a 

1  The  World,  July  15,  1874. 


i88o]  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  STAGE  107 

'reformed  gambler,'  and,  for  a  consideration,  would  instruct 
novices  in  all  the  tricks  of  his  trade.  Mr.  Walker  was 
universally  esteemed  by  his  fellow-citizens,  and  died  last 
year,  greatly  regretted  by  a  numerous  body  of  friends  and 
admirers.  In  casting  about  for  the  city  editor  for  our  jour- 
nal, we  have  fallen  upon  a  gentleman,  who,  by  promoting 
rotten  companies,  puffing  worthless  stock,  and  other  dis- 
reputable, but  strictly  legal,  devices,  has  earned  a  modest 
competence.  He  resides  in  a  villa  at  Clapham,  he  attends 
church  every  Sunday  with  exemplary  regularity,  and  is  the 
centre  of  a  most  respectable  circle  of  friends;  many  of  his  old 
associates  still  keep  up  their  acquaintance  with  him,  and  there- 
fore he  is  in  a  position  to  know  all  that  passes  in  the  city.  This 
reformed  speculator  we  have  engaged  to  write  our  city  article." 
The  staff  of  writers  selected  by  Mr.  Yates  for  the  first 
year  of  the  World  was  a  singularly  efficient  one.  It  com- 
prised, besides  Mr.  Labouchere,  Mr.  T.  H.  S.  Escott,  Dr. 
Birkbeck  Hill,  Lord  Winchelsea  (who  contributed  articles  on 
racing  and  turf  matters),  M.  Camille  Barrere,  Mrs.  Lynn 
Linton,  Mr.  F.  I.  Scudamore,  Mr.  Archibald  Forbes,  and  Mr. 
Henry  Lucy  (who  commenced,  in  the  eighth  number,  his 
series  of  Parliamentary  Sketches,  "  Under  the  Clock").  But, 
in  spite  of  the  excellent  writers  engaged  on  its  production, 
the  World  did  not  sell  well.  Again  it  was  the  main  heureuse 
of  Henry  Labouchere  that  gave  the  necessary  push  to  make 
the  new  weekly  go.  Mr.  Yates  writes  as  follows:  "Mr. 
Labouchere  was  dealing  with  City  matters  in  a  way  which 
they  had  never  been  dealt  with  before,  and  ruthlessly  attack- 
ing and  denouncing  Mr.  Sampson,  the  city  editor  of  the 
Times,  whose  position  and  virtue  had  hitherto  been  consid- 
ered impregnable.  All  these  features  .  .  .  received  due 
appreciation  from  our  provincial  confreres,  and  the  'trade,' 
but,  as  yet,  they  seemed  to  have  made  no  impression  on  the 
public.  We  were  in  the  desperate  condition  of  having  a  good 
article  to  sell  without  the  power  of  making  that  fact  known. 
At  last,  and  just  in  the  nick  of  time,  we  obtained  the  requisite 


io8  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1864- 

public  notice,  and  without  paying  anything  for  it.  A 
stockbroker,  a  member  of  the  Stock  Exchange,  who  conceived 
himself  likely  to  be  attacked  for  certain  practices  by  Mr. 
Labouchere  in  the  city  article,  threatened  to  horsewhip  that 
gentleman,  should  such  observations  appear,  and  Mr.  Labou- 
chere had  the  would-be  assailant  brought  before  the  Lord 
Mayor  for  threatening  to  commit  a  breach  of  the  peace. 
The  case  was  really  a  trivial  one,  and  it  was  settled  by  the 
defendant  being  bound  over  in  sureties  for  good  behaviour. 
But  it  had  been  argued  at  full  length,  each  side  being  re- 
presented by  eminent  lawyers;  Mr.  Thesiger,  Q.C.,  appeared 
for  the  defendant  and  Mr.  (afterwards  Sir)  George  Lewis  for 
Mr.  Labouchere.  A  great  deal  was  said  about  the  World, 
and  its  determination  to  purge  Capel  Court  of  all  engaged  in 
iniquitous  dealings.  All  that  was  said  was  reported  at 
length  in  the  daily  papers.  The  effect  was  instantaneous; 
the  circulation  rose  at  once,  and  the  next  week  showed  a  very 
large  increase  of  advertisements. " 

The  case,  as  Mr.  Yates  says,  was  a  trivial  one,  but 
remarkable  for  Mr.  Labouchere's  irresistibly  funny  way  of 
giving  evidence.  It  was  tried  on  October  14,  1874,  a*  the 
Guild  Hall,  and  in  answer  to  the  Lord  Mayor,  he  gave  the 
most  absurd  account  of  the  assault  as  it  occurred : 

" '  I  said  to  him  (Mr.  Abbott) :  "  I  presume  that  if  you  were 
attacked  in  a  newspaper  unfairly,  you  would  bring  an  action 
for  libel,  and  if  you  won  it  you  would  get  heavy  damages. " 
He  replied :  "I  should  not  go  into  Court ;  I  know  what  news- 
papers want;  they  always  want  to  go  into  Court,  it  is  a  fine 
advertisement  for  them.  I  should  horsewhip  the  man." 
"Well,"  I  said,  "under  the  circumstances,  the  observation 
is  a  personal  one,  and  I  reply  to  you,  in  the  words  of  Dr. 
Johnson,  '  I  shall  not  be  deterred  from  unmasking  a  scoun- 
drel by  the  menaces  of  a  ruffian. ' '  He  then  said  he  presumed 
I  meant  this  for  him,  or  something  of  that  sort.  I  said, 
"Well,  it  looks  like  it.  You  were  just  now  talking  about 
horsewhipping;  why  don't  you  begin?" 


i88o]  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  STAGE  109 

"  Mr.  Thesiger:  '  In  that  tone  of  voice?' 
"Very  much  like  that,'  drawled  on  Mr.  Labouchere. 
'He  then  stared  at  me,  and  I  repeated:  "Well,  why  don't 
you  begin?"  I  don't  know  what  his  object  was,  but  he 
rolled  himself  about  and  threw  up  his  hands.  I  presume 
he  intended  to  frighten  me  by  an  exhibition  of  what  he 
imagined  to  be  a  pugilistic  attitude  more  than  anything 
else.  I  again  said :  "  Why  do  you  not  begin?  "  He  then  hit 
me  a  blow.' " 

"Have  you  any  fear  of  Mr.  Abbott?"  asked  Mr.  Lewis, 
later  on  in  the  proceedings.  "Well,  no,"  replied  Mr. 
Labouchere.  "  When  I  was  at  Spezia,  I  used  to  bathe  a  good 
deal  in  the  Gulf  and  there  were  a  quantity  of  porpoises — " 
But  what  Mr.  Abbott's  behaviour  had  to  with  porpoises, 
was  never  revealed  to  the  Court,  for,  in  spite  of  the  hisses  of 
the  audience,  who  wanted  to  hear  the  end  of  Mr.  Labou- 
chere's  story,  Mr.  Thesiger  interrupted,  saying  sharply: 
"  This  is  really  making  a  farce  of  a  Court  of  Justice. " 

"  1  am  a  calculator,  not  a  speculator, "  was  one  of  Labou- 
chere's  retorts  to  Mr.  Thesiger.  "A  distinction,"  said  Mr. 
Thesiger,  when  summing  up  for  his  client,  "  that  Mr.  Labou- 
chere will  be  able  to  explain  to  his  own  satisfaction,  but 
perhaps  not  to  that  of  other  people. " 

Mr.  Grenville  Murray  was  another  able  writer  on  the  staff 
of  the  World,  and  was  for  some  time  Mr.  Yates's  partner  in 
the  proprietorship  of  the  paper,  but  the  partnership  was  dis- 
solved because  Mr.  Yates  disapproved  of  Murray's  repeated 
attacks  upon  Lord  Derby.  It  would  have  been  well  if  Mr. 
Labouchere  had  been  as  prudent  as  Mr.  Yates.  When  Mr. 
Labouchere  started  Truth,  he  persuaded  Mr.  Grenville 
Murray  to  write  some  of  his  "  Queer  Stories, "  and  it  was  one 
of  these  that  brought  upon  the  editor  of  Truth  the  wrath, 
never  to  be  assuaged,  of  a  very  important  personage.  Mr. 
Labouchere  told  me  once  that,  by  some  accident,  he  never 
saw  the  "Queer  Story"  in  question,  until  it  had  actually 
appeared  in  print.  Had  he  done  so,  he  should  never  have 


no  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1864- 

permitted  its  publication.  Reference  had  already  been 
made  to  Mr.  Labouchere's  somewhat  imprudent  champion- 
ship of  the  ex-Consul  of  Odessa,  but,  when  it  was  asserted 
in  a  much-read  weekly  that  Mr.  Labouchere  was  the  proprie- 
tor of  the  Queen's  Messenger,*  he  was  obliged  to  send  the 
following  letter  to  the  Times: 

2  BOLTON  STREET,  July  5,  1869. 

SIR, — Having  been  informed  that  the  proprietorship  of  the 
Queen's  Messenger  has  been  attributed  to  me  by  a  weekly  news- 
paper, I  shall  be  much  obliged  to  you  to  allow  me  a  space  in  your 
columns  to  deny  the  statement.  I  have  not,  and  never  had, 
directly  or  indirectly,  anything  to  do  with  the  Queen's  Messenger. 

HENRY  LABOUCHERE. 

An  old  member  of  the  staff  of  the  World,  in  a  recently  pub- 
lished article  commenting  upon  certain  unintentional  mis- 
statements  of  a  definite  nature  that  had  appeared  from  time 
to  time  in  the  press  in  connection  with  the  two  gifted  editors 
respectively  of  the  World  and  Truth,  said,  after  dealing  with 
one  relating  to  Mr.  Labouchere's  supposed  partnership  with 
Mr.  Yates:  "Equally  contrary  to  fact  is  the  statement,  even 
more  generally  made  and  accepted,  that  Mr.  Labouchere 
severed  his  connection  with  the  World,  and  founded  Truth, 
as  the  sequel  of  personal  differences  between  himself  and  his 
sometime  editor.  No  such  personal  differences  occurred  at 
any  period;  and,  though  Yates  would  have  been  more  than 
human  if  he  had  rejoiced  at  the  decision  of  a  particularly 
able  member  of  his  staff  to  leave  him,  in  order  to  start  another 
journal,  planned  on  parallel  lines  and  appealing  to  the  same 

1  Mr.  Grenville  Murray,  who  was  the  editor  of  the  Queen's  Messenger,  was 
assaulted  by  Lord  Carrington  on  account  of  an  article  he  wrote  about  the 
latter's  father,  and  out  of  the  case  which  Mr.  Grenville  Murray  brought  against 
Lord  Carrington  arose  Mr.  Murray's  prosecution  for  perjury,  which  resulted 
in  his  departure  from  England.  He  died  in  Paris  in  1881.  It  was  at  the  time 
of  the  scandal  aroused  by  the  article  for  which  Lord  Carrington  assaulted 
Grenville  Murray,  that  Mr.  Labouchere  was  accused  of  being  the  proprietor 
of  the  paper. 


i88o]  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  STAGE  in 

public,  he  was  far  too  shrewd  a  man  of  the  world  to  show  any 
sense  of  grievance  or  resentment.  It  happened  that  the 
news  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  project  first  reached  his  editor's 
ears  through  the  medium  of  a  third  person;  and  on  being 
challenged  by  Yates,  as  to  the  truth  of  the  rumour,  the 
imperturbable  'Labby*  characteristically  replied  that  he 
had  decided  for  the  future  to  have  a  pair  of  boots  of  his  own 
with  which  to  do  his  own  kicking.  Rivals,  in  a  journalistic 
sense,  as  they  thenceforth  necessarily  became,  the  friendly 
personal  relations  between  the  two  were  maintained  to  the 
last,  and  the  weekly  mutual  corrections  of  'Henry1  by 
'  Edmund '  and  vice  versa,  which  caused  so  much  diversion 
to  the  readers  of  both  papers,  were  conducted  at  all  times  in 
an  entirely  amicable  spirit."1 

Mr.  Montesquieu  Bellew,  another  journalist  of  that  time, 
was  an  intime  of  Mr.  Labouchere's.  On  the  occasion  of  Mr. 
Bellew's  son  choosing  the  stage  as  his  profession,  Mr.  Labou- 
chere  took  the  opportunity  of  writing  in  Truth  a  racy  article, 
in  which  he  related  the  whole  story  of  his  friendship  and 
travels  in  company  with  this  most  unconventional  parson. 
They  must  indeed  have  been  a  queer  pair,  and  it  is  interest- 
ing to  imagine  the  effect  they  must  have  produced  together 
at  the  various  tables  d'hote  and  social  functions  they  attended 
on  their  journey.  They  became  acquainted  in  this  wise. 
Mr.  Labouchere  was  idling  one  day  on  the  steps  of  his  hotel 
at  Venice,  when  he  noticed  a  gentleman  paying  his  bill  and 
tipping  the  porters  preparatory  to  taking  his  departure.  His 
carriage  was  waiting  for  him  at  the  door.  "Where  are  you 
going?  "  said  Mr.  Labouchere,  on  the  impulse  of  the  moment. 
"To  the  Holy  Land,"  replied  the  stranger.  "Wait  five 
minutes,"  replied  Labouchere,  "and  I  will  come  with  you." 
He  flew  to  his  room  and  flung  his  clothes  into  his  portmanteau 
and  joined  Mr.  Bellew,  who  was  waiting  for  him.  He  did  not, 
however,  discover  the  identity  of  his  travelling  companion 
until  they  reached  Jerusalem,  although  he  knew  that  he  was 

1  TTu  World,  Jan.  23,  1912. 


112  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1864- 

a  clergyman,  because  every  night  before  retiring  to  rest  Mr. 
Bellew  pressed  a  manuscript  sermon  into  his  hand,  for  "night- 
reading.  "  At  Jerusalem,  Mr.  Bellew  broke  to  him  that,  his 
bishop  being  in  the  place,  he  should  probably  be  asked  to 
preach  in  the  English  Church.  Labouchere  took  this  as  a 
hint  that  Mr.  Bellew  would  like  him  to  be  present,  so  he  made 
his  plans  accordingly.  Finding  out  at  what  precise  moment 
of  the  service  the  sermon  would  begin,  he  marched  into  the 
church  with  great  impressiveness,  at  the  head  of  a  large  band 
of  Arabs  and  others,  whom  he  had  bribed  to  accompany  him. 
This,  he  explained  afterwards  to  Bellew,  was  to  create  in  the 
bishop's  mind  the  impression  that  Bellew  was  such  a  prodigy 
of  piety  that  even  the  inhabitants  of  the  country  places  of 
Syria  had  heard  of  his  fame  and  were  come  in  flocks  to  gaze 
upon  him.  The  bishop's  annoyance  on  the  occasion  he 
assured  Bellew  was  entirely  due  to  his  jealousy  of  his  more 
popular  confrere.  They  quarrelled  on  the  journey.  Bellew 
pointed  out  to  Labouchere  a  small  stream.  "That, "  he  said, 
"is  the  source  of  the  Jordan."  Labouchere  pointed  out 
another  stream,  declaring  that  that  and  that  alone  was  the 
source  of  the  Jordan.  They  argued  the  matter  hotly,  but 
Labouchere  was  not  aware  how  deeply  Bellew  had  taken  the 
affair  to  heart,  until  he  found  himself  in  bed  that  night  with 
no  manuscript  sermon  under  his  pillow.  But  Bellew  was  a 
Christian  and  a  man  of  tact.  The  next  day  in  the  course  of 
their  wanderings,  they  came  upon  another  minute  trickle  of 
water.  "That, "  said  Bellew,  with  a  note  of  conciliation  in  his 
voice,  "is  the  source  of  the  Jordan;  we  were  both  in  the  wrong 
yesterday. "  "Of  course  it  is, "  assented  Labouchere ;  " how 
in  the  world  we  came  to  make  such  a  mistake  I  can't 
imagine."  From  Jerusalem  they  went  on  to  the  Dead  Sea. 
Bellew  had  picturesque-looking  long  white  hair,  which  he 
would  comb  and  arrange  before  a  looking-glass  that  accom- 
panied him  on  all  his  travels.  This  looking-glass  got  upon 
Labouchere's  nerves,  so  one  day  "  I  got  hold  of  it, "  he  related, 
''and  sent  it  to  join  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  beneath  the 


i88o]  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  STAGE  113 

gloomy  waters  that  stretched  out  beneath  us.  The  next 
night,  we  pitched  our  tent  in  the  desert.  Dire  was  the 
confusion  on  rising.  The  looking-glass  could  not  be  found. 
I  held  my  tongue  respecting  its  fate.  Probably  some  day  or 
another  some  eminent  explorer,  poking  about  the  bottom  of 
the  Dead  Sea,  will  fish  up  this  looking-glass,  and  we  shall  have 
archaeologists  divided  in  opinion,  one  half  proving  that  it 
belonged  to  a  lady  of  Sodom  and  the  other  half  that  it  was 
the  property  of  a  gentleman  of  Gomorrah.  Bellew  was  equal 
to  the  occasion.  He  managed  to  arrange  his  hair  by  looking 
into  the  back  of  a  dessert  spoon. " x  Mr.  Bellew  contributed 
a  most  interesting  account  of  his  journey  to  the  East  in  the 
first  number  of  Temple  Bar  called  "Over  Babylon  to  Baal- 
beck.  "'  He  does  not,  however,  mention  in  it  his  travel- 
ling companion,  nor  any  of  the  incidents  referred  to  by  Mr. 
Labouchere  in  his  account  of  the  same  journey.  Mr.  Bellew 
subsequently  joined  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  died  in  1874. 
On  one  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  frequent  visits  to  Italy,  he 
met  Dumas  pere,  with  whom  he  had  an  amusing  adventure. 
Strolling  into  a  restaurant  at  Genoa  for  breakfast,  he  per- 
ceived Dumas  at  another  table,  and,  seated  by  his  side,  a  very 
pretty  girl,  dressed  like  a  Circassian  boy,  young  enough  to  be 
Dumas' s  granddaughter.  To  continue  the  story  in  his  own 
words:  "Dumas  told  me  that  they  had  just  landed  from  a 
yacht  and  were  spending  the  day  in  Genoa.  He  introduced 
the  girl  to  me  as  Emile.  After  luncheon  he  proposed  that  we 
should  all  take  a  carriage,  and  go  and  see  a  show  villa  in  the 
neighbourhood.  When  we  reached  the  villa,  we  were  told 
that  it  was  not  open  to  the  public  on  that  day.  '  Inform  your 
master, '  said  Dumas  to  the  servant,  'that  Alexandre  Dumas 
is  at  his  door. '  The  servant  returned,  and  told  us  that  we 
could  enter.  We  were  ushered  into  a  dining-room,  present- 
ing a  typically  Italian  domestic  scene.  The  father  and 
mother  of  the  family  were  present,  and  several  well-grown 
boys  and  girls.  Dumas  was  somewhat  taken  aback  for  a 

1  Truth,  October  11,  1877.  »  TemfU  Bar,  December  I,  1860. 

8 


114  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1864- 

moment,  but  introduced  Emile  and  me  vaguely  as  'mes 
enfants. '  As  we  were  asked  to  sit  down  to  coffee  we  made 
ourselves  at  home.  Afterwards  the  owner  showed  us  his 
garden.  He  and  Dumas  walked  first.  Emile  and  I  wandered 
about  hand-in-hand  to  denote  our  brotherly  and  sisterly 
affection.  The  Circassian  was  in  a  playful  mood,  and  told 
me  that  Dumas  was  of  a  jealous  disposition,  which  grand- 
fathers sometimes  are.  He  had  one  eye  on  the  beauties  of 
the  garden  and  the  other  on  his  children.  'What  are  you 
doing?'  said  Dumas.  I  replied  that  I  was  embracing  my 
sister.  As  he  could  not  well  object  to  this,  for  once,  I  think, 
I  got  the  better  of  the  lady's  eminent  grandfather. "  He  had 
a  story  too  of  the  younger  Dumas.  Labouchere  was  at  the 
wedding  of  Mile.  Maria  Dumas,  and  her  brother,  on  coming 
to  the  sacristy  with  all  the  family  friends  for  the  signature  of 
the  register,  looked  at  the  document  for  a  minute,  as  if 
perusing  it  carefully,  and  then  said  with  mock  gravity,  "The 
accused  have  nothing  further  to  add  for  their  defence?  Be  it 
so ! "  And  then  he  signed. 

Mr.  Labouchere's  curiosity  at  this  period  of  his  life  was 
insatiable.  He  wanted  to  know  what  it  felt  like  to  be  a 
criminal  about  to  be  hanged.  So,  having  procured  an 
invitation  to  see  all  over  Newgate,  he  carried  out  his  experi- 
ment, and  described  his  sensations  in  the  columns  of  the 
Daily  News.  After  giving  a  vivid  account  of  the  prison  and 
some  of  its  inmates,  he  wrote  the  following  realistic  lines: 
"And  now  we  were  led  through  a  long  stone  passage  open  to 
the  sky.  This  was  the  Newgate  graveyard.  Beneath  each 
flag  is  the  corpse  of  a  murderer,  and  on  the  walls  opposite  are 
their  initials,  which  have  been  cut  by  the  warders  to  guide 
them  through  this  murderous  labyrinth.  At  the  other  end  of 
the  passage  is  the  execution  yard.  The  scaffold  is  put  up  the 
night  before  an  execution,  in  a  corner  close  by  the  door  through 
which  the  condemned  prisoner  issues.  The  court  is  sur- 
rounded by  high  gloomy  walls,  and  looks  like  the  ante-chamber 
of  Hades.  I  asked  the  warder  whether  in  his  opinion  murder- 


i88o]  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  STAGE  115 

ers  preferred  being  executed  in  public  or  private.  He  opined 
the  former.  'The  crowd  keeps  them  up,'  he  said.  'They 
are  not  so  firm,  now  it  takes  place  in  private. '  I  understand 
this  feeling.  If  I  were  going  to  be  hanged  myself  I  should 
like  the  ceremony  to  take  place  coram  populo.  I  should  feel 
myself  already  dead  in  that  dreary  yard;  and  I  should 
prefer,  I  imagine,  after  weeks  or  months  of  prison  life,  to 
have  one  more  look  at  the  world,  even  though  that  world 
were  a  howling  mob,  before  quitting  it  for  ever. 

"We  passed  through  the  chapel  and  were  shown  the 
chair  on  which  the  prisoners  condemned  to  death  are  perched 
—in  obedience  to  what  seems  to  me  a  barbarous  custom — 
to  hear  their  last  sermon,  and  then  we  entered  the  'Press 
Room.'  It  is  a  room  of  moderate  size  with  plain  deal 
tables,  benches,  and  cupboards.  One  of  these  latter  the 
warder  opened,  and  showed  us  Jack  Sheppard's  chains,  and 
other  interesting  relics,  which  are  as  religiously  preserved  as 
though  they  had  belonged  to  saints.  A  leather  sort  of 
harness  was  also  brought  out.  It  consisted  of  two  belts 
with  straps  attached  to  the  lower  one  for  the  wrists.  This 
is  the  murderer's  last  dress,  and  with  it  round  him  he  walks 
to  the  scaffold.  I  tried  it  on,  and  when  my  hands  were 
buckled  to  my  side,  I  pictured  to  myself  my  sensations  if 
I  had  been  waiting  to  fall  into  the  procession  to  the  neigh- 
bouring yard.  I  heard  my  funeral  bell  toll ;  I  saw  the  ordin- 
ary by  my  side;  the  warders  telling  me  that  my  time  was 
up;  Calcraft  bustling  about  eager  to  begin.  So  strong  was 
the  impression  that  I  hastened  to  get  out  of  the  prison,  and 
was  not  fully  convinced  that  I  was  not  going  to  be  hanged 
until  I  found  myself  in  the  midst  of  a  crowd  in  Fleet  Street, 
who,  for  reasons  best  known  to  themselves,  were  cheering 
the '  Claimant, '  who  was  issuing  from  a  shop,  while  a  chimney 
sweep  who  was  passing  by  was  welcomed  as  Bogle,  being 
mistaken  for  that  dusky  retainer." ' 

With  reference  to  the  "Claimant,"  Mr.  George  Augustus 

1  Daily  News,  February  19,  1872. 


u6  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1864- 

Sala  has  a  curious  story  to  relate  about  him  and  Mr.  Labou- 
chere, who,  of  course,  took  the  greatest  interest  in  the  famous 
trial.  "I  saw  a  great  deal  of  the  Claimant  during  1872," 
says  Mr.  Sala,  "and  I  remember  once  dining  with  him  and 
the  late  Mr.  Serjeant  Ballantine  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Labou- 
chere,  who  then  resided  in  Bolton  Street,  Piccadilly.  The 
senior  member  for  Northampton  had,  upon  occasion,  a 
curious  way  of  putting  things;  and  over  the  walnuts  and 
the  wine — of  which  our  host  was  not  a  partaker — he  startled 
us  all  by  coolly  asking  his  obese  guest,  'Are  you  Arthur 
Orton?'  'Good  Heavens,  Mr.  Labouchere, '  exclaimed  the 
stout  litigant,  '  what  do  you  mean? '  '  Oh,  nothing  in  partic- 
ular,'  quoth  Mr.  Labouchere;  'help  yourself  to  some  more 
claret.'  "' 

Mr.  Labouchere  however  afterwards  was  quite  convinced 
that  the  Claimant  was  not  Orton.  When  the  latter  was 
released  from  penal  servitude  in  1884,  he  published  the 
following  reminiscence: 

"It  is  a  curious  fact  that  during  his  trial  the  London 
papers  sold  more  copies  than  during  the  Franco-Prussian 
War,  or  any  other  recent  eventful  epoch.  I  confess  that 
it  never  was  proved  absolutely  to  my  mind  that  he  was 
Arthur  Orton;  on  the  other  hand,  whilst  there  was  the 
strongest  presumption  that  he  was,  he  entirely  failed  to  make 
out  that  he  was  Sir  Roger  Tichborne.  I  remember  once 
during  the  trial,  in  company  with  Mr.  G.  A.  Sala,  passing 
an  evening  with  the  '  stout  nobleman '  at  his  hotel  in  Jermyn 
Street.  We  found  him  very  pleasant,  and  he  told  us  many 
tales  of  his  existence  in  Australia.  He  certainly  had  a 
wonderful  command  over  his  features.  On  that  last  day 
of  the  civil  trial,  the  room  at  the  hotel  was  filled  with  adher- 
ents, many  of  whom  were  Tichborne  bondholders.  Suddenly 
the  Claimant  walked  in.  He  leant  against  the  mantelpiece, 
took  his  cigar  out  of  his  mouth,  and  announced  the  fatal 
news.  Great  was  the  excitement,  great  was  the  despair  and 

1  G.  A.  Sala,  Life  and  Adventures. 


i88o]  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  STAGE  117 

the  indignation.  But  the  Claimant  calmly  smoked  on, 
apparently  the  only  person  in  the  room  who  had  no  sort  of 
interest  in  the  matter."1 

Soon  after  Mr.  Labouchere's  founding  of  Truth,  he 
became  involved  in  several  lawsuits,  the  most  famous  of 
which,  at  this  period,  was  the  one  which  indirectly  led  to 
his  expulsion  from  the  Beefsteak  Club.  He  invariably 
commented  with  great  wit  and  asperity  upon  his  enemies, 
frustrated  and  otherwise,  in  the  columns  of  his  paper,  and 
there  is  no  doubt  that  its  enormous  popularity  depended 
in  large  degree  upon  the  fearlessness  and  unconvention- 
ality  with  which  he  attacked  all  persons  of  high  degree  and 
low,  guilty  of  injustice,  bullying,  snobisme,  or  wilfully  ignor- 
ant prejudice,  who,  for  long,  had  been  silently  endured  by 
their  weaker  brethren,  for  no  other  reason  than  because 
there  had  never  before  been  a — Labby. 

Sometimes  he  was  accused  by  an  envious  press  of  being 
a  liar.  The  title  he  had  chosen  for  his  paper  possibly  pro- 
voked the  criticism.  He  was  rather  sensitive  on  the  subject, 
and  expressed  a  certain  amount  of  annoyance  whenever  the 
well-known  ditty  of  Sir  Henry  Bridges,  "  Labby  in  our 
Abbey,"  which  was  published  in  M.  A.  P.,  was  mentioned.2 
In  Truth  he  once  produced  what  may  be  called  an  apposite 
alibi  when  confronted  by  the  accusation.  Some  correspon- 
dent had  referred  rather  pointedly  to  the  existence  of  Lying 
Clubs  in  the  last  century.  "  There  is  no  occasion  to  go  back 
to  the  last  century  to  prove  the  existence  of  Lying  Clubs," 

1  Truth,  October  23,  1884. 

'  The  first  and  last  verses  are  as  follows: 

Of  all  the  boys  that  are  so  smart    The  ministers  and  members  all 

There  's  none  like  crafty  Labby;      Make  game  of  truthful  Labby, 
He  learns  the  secret  of  each  heart,  Though  but  for  him  it 's  said  they  'd  be 

And  lives  near  our  Abbey;  A  sleepy  set  and  flabby; 

There  is  no  lawyer  in  the  land         And  when  their  seven  long  years  are  out. 

That 's  half  as  sharp  as  Labby;        They  hope  to  bury  Labby; 
He  is  a  demon  in  the  art  Ah  then  how  peacefully  he  11  lie, 

And  guileless  as  a  babby!  But  not  in  our  Abbey ! 


Ii8  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1864-1880] 

he  wrote.  "  When  I  was  at  Bishop- Auckland  in  County 
Durham,  a  few  years  ago,  I  found  a  Lying  Club  existing  and 
flourishing.  There  were  different  grades  of  proficiency.  If 
a  man  could  not  lie  at  all,  he  was  expelled.  If  he  lied  rather 
badly,  he  was  given  another  trial.  I  never  knew  any  one 
expelled.  I  was  blackballed." 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  BESIEGED   RESIDENT 

(Sept.,  iSyo-Feb.,  1871) 

MR.  LABOUCHERE  was  a  famous  raconteur  and  of  the 
reminiscences  he  loved  to  recount  there  was  no  more 
riveting  a  series  than  the  one  relating  his  experiences  as  a 
journalist  during  the  siege  of  Paris.  According  to  the 
Times1  nothing  that  he  ever  achieved  in  journalism  or 
literature  excelled  or  perhaps  equalled  the  letters  of  a  "Be- 
sieged Resident,"  which  he  sent  from  Paris  to  the  Daily 
News,  in  the  autumn  and  winter  of  1870  and  1871.  The 
correspondent  of  the  Daily  News  in  Paris  at  that  period  was 
the  late  Mr.  George  Morland  Crawford,  who  had  occupied 
the  position  since  1851.  Mr.  Crawford  had  already  made 
Mr.  Labouchere's  acquaintance  in  the  early  sixties,  when 
the  latter  was  an  attache  at  Frankfort,  and  they  had  met 
again  later  on  at  Homburg.  It  had  been  the  intention  of 
Mr.  Crawford  to  remain  at  his  post  in  Paris,  when  an  un- 
expected offer  from  Henry  Labouchere  to  replace  him  tem- 
porarily caused  him  to  alter  his  plans. 

Mrs.  Crawford  has  given  a  graphic  account*  of  how 
Labouchere  took  her  husband's  place  as  correspondent. 
He  had  been  in  Paris  with  the  exception  of  some  excursions 
into  the  country  for  several  weeks,  and  had  invited  Mr. 

1  Times,  January  17,  1912.  *  Truth,  January  24,  1912. 

119 


120  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1870- 

Crawford  to  dine  with  him  at  Durand's  on  the  night  of 
September  17.  The  party  was  to  have  included  Aurelien 
Scholl,  celebrated  then  as  a  wit,  Got  of  the  Com6die  Francaise, 
Dr.  Alan  Herbert,  and  Mr.  Frank  Lawley.  However,  the 
uncertainty  of  immediate  events  and  the  general  rush  of 
departure  from  the  capital  obliged  Labouchere  to  put  off 
his  party.  He  went  at  about  six  o'clock  to  the  Cafe  du 
Vaudeville  to  find  Mr.  Crawford — first  to  tell  him  that  the 
dinner  was  countermanded,  and  then  to  propose  to  take  his 
place  as  correspondent  in  Paris,  whilst  he,  Mr.  Crawford, 
should  go  to  Tours.  Mrs.  Crawford  happened  to  be  with 
her  husband  at  the  caf6,  and  she  thus  describes  the  impression 
Labouchere  made  upon  her: 

"  Labby  looked  a  young  man  on  this,  to  me,  memorable 
evening,  but,  at  the  close  of  the  siege,  frightened  Odo  Russell 
by  looking  almost  an  old  one.  Before  my  husband,  who  was 
writing,  introduced  us  he  began  to  talk  to  me  and  I  could 
not  make  him  out,  but  at  once  enjoyed  his  company.  He 
had  a  very  pleasing  and  intelligent  face,  I  thought  spoke  a 
little  like  an  American  (he  had  been  escorting  a  party  of 
American  young  ladies  to  Rouen),  had  high  caste  manners, 
but  with  naturalness,  and  much  that  was  the  reverse  of  that 
affectation  of  owlish  wisdom  or  cordial  dodgery  then  rife 
in  the  diplomatic  world.  I  saw  that  he  was  somebody, 
both  on  his  own  account,  and  from  education,  and  thought 
that  he  might  be  some  Don  brought  up  in  England,  who  had 
made  himself  the  president  of  a  South  American  Republic." 

As  soon  as  Mr.  Crawford  had  finished  his  writing,  Labou- 
chere broached  the  subject  of  the  Daily  News.  He  said: 
"A  fancy  seized  me,  as  Sheffield  (of  the  British  Embassy) 
told  me  you  had  sent  your  little  children  to  England,  and 
your  wife  had  resolved  to  stay  through  the  siege  and  give 
you  what  help  she  can.  It  is  to  take  your  place  as  corre- 
spondent of  the  Daily  News,  and  to  send  you  into  the  pro- 
vinces. As  I  am  a  proprietor  of  the  paper,  Robinson  won't 
object  to  this  arrangement.  It  would  be  an  excellent  thing 


THE  BESIEGED  RESIDENT  121 

for  my  heirs  were  I  to  stop  a  bullet  or  die  of  starvation,  but 
were  anything  of  the  sort  to  befall  you  it  would  be  calamitous 
for  you  and  yours.  You  need  not  leave  me  the  six  weeks' 
provisions  which  Sheffield  told  me  you  laid  in,  but  can  give 
them  to  poor  neighbours.  I  can  always  get  as  much  fresh 
mutton  as  I  want  from  the  porter  of  the  British  Embassy, 
who  has  orders  to  this  effect.  There  is  a  flock  of  ewes  and 
wethers  on  the  grounds  there,  to  browse  on  the  grass  and  eat 
the  hay  laid  in  for  the  horses  of  Lord  Lyons,  before  he  had 
directions  from  Granville  to  go  to  Tours  to  watch  events 
there.  The  only  person  at  the  Embassy  is  the  porter.  We 
two  will  have  more  mutton  than  we  can  eat  even  if  the  siege 
lasts  long.  The  porter  knows  how  to  grow  potatoes  and 
mushrooms  in  an  empty  cellar,  so  that  we  two  shall  have  not 
only  meat  but  dainties  to  vary  the  dishes.  I  have  arranged  to 
have  rooms  at  the  Grand  Hotel,  so  you  see  I  shall  be  in 
clover." 

Mrs.  Crawford,  who  did  not  the  least  believe  he  was  in 
earnest,  protested  that  she  was  not  at  all  afraid  of  remaining 
in  Paris,  but  Labouchere  persisted  in  his  persuasions. 

"If  you  were  at  all  affected,"  he  replied,  "I  should  say, 
'Don't  be  theatrical.'  Instead  of  that  I  shall  say,  'Don't 
be  like  Lot's  wife."  Then  he  took  out  his  watch  and 
explained  that  the  last  train  to  leave  Paris  between  then  and 
the  end  of  the  siege  would  start  from  the  Gare  St.  Lazare 
that  night  at  9.40.  "I  advise  you  to  go  home  at  once,"  he 
went  on,  "and  pack  up  what  clothes  you  can  for  your  tem- 
porary residence  at  the  seat  of  the  delegate  government  at 
Tours.  Lyons  will  be  glad  to  have  you  near  him,  for,  as 
you  can  understand,  he  knows  nothing  personally  of  those 
friends  of  yours  whom  the  Revolution  has  brought  to  the 
top." 

Mrs.  Crawford  lost  no  more  time  in  discussion,  and  hur- 
ried off  to  make  her  preparations  in  order  to  catch  the  last 
train  by  which  she  and  her  husband  could  get  out  of  Paris. 
The  9.40  train  did  not  leave  St.  Lazare  that  day  before 


122  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1870- 

midnight,  and  such  was  its  weight  of  passengers  and  bag- 
gage that  no  fewer  than  three  engines  had  to  be  coupled  on. 

The  next  day  Mr.  Labouchere  sent  his  first  letter  to 
London,  in  his  capacity  of  Paris  correspondent  to  the  Daily 
News.  The  mails  continued  to  leave  Paris  regularly  for 
another  three  days,  but  the  chaos  that  prevailed  in  the  post- 
office  did  not  inspire  the  citizens  who  entrusted  their  cor- 
respondence to  its  tender  care  with  overmuch  confidence. 

"  Everybody  was  in  military  uniform,"  writes  Labouchere, 
"everybody  was  shrugging  his  shoulders,  and  everybody  was 
in  the  condition  of  a  London  policeman,  were  he  to  see  him- 
self marched  off  to  prison  by  a  street  sweeper.  That  the 
Prussians  should  have  taken  the  Emperor  prisoner  and 
have  vanquished  the  French  armies,  had  of  course  astonished 
these  French  bureaucrats,  but  that  they  should  have  ven- 
tured to  interfere  with  postmen  had  perfectly  dumbfounded 
them."  Having  disposed  of  his  letter  as  best  he  might, 
Labouchere  passed  through  the  courtyard  to  try  his  luck 
with  a  telegram.  There  he  saw  postmen  seated  on  the  boxes 
of  carts,  with  no  horses  before  them.  It  was  their  hour  to 
carry  out  the  letters,  and  thus  mechanically  they  fulfilled 
their  duty.  It  is  in  touches  such  as  these  that  the  writer 
makes  the  scenes  of  the  winter  months  of  '70  and  '71  live 
before  the  eyes  of  his  readers.  Were  the  ridiculous  episodes 
he  relates  visible  to  others  besides  himself,  or  were  his 
journalistic  abilities  so  acutely  developed  that  nothing 
significant,  however  minute,  could  escape  his  eager  scrutiny? 
It  is  not  easy  to  say,  but  the  fact  remains  that  he  gave  the 
world  at  that  time,  in  astonishingly  amusing  letters,  vivid 
pictures  of  bureaucracy  startled  into  ludicrous  attitudes 
of  unaccustomed  enterprise,  of  gilt  and  tinsel  patriotism 
ineffectually  trying  to  replace  the  paper  courage1  of  Imperial 

xThe  Emperor's  plan  of  campaign  was  to  mass  150,000  men  at  Metz; 
100,000  at  Straosburg,  and  50,000  at  the  Camp  at  Chalons.  It  was  then  his 
intention  to  unite  the  armies  at  Metz  and  Strassburg,  and  to  cross  the  Rhine 
at  Maxau,  to  force  the  States  of  South  Germany  to  observe  neutrality.  He 


THE  BESIEGED  RESIDENT  123 

France — of  an  irresponsible  populace  brought  face  to  face 
with  a  catastrophe  which  they  imagined  to  be  impossible 
up  till  within  the  last  ten  days  of  the  siege. 

The  Parisians  had  undoubtedly  a  good  excuse  for  the 
poor  figure  they  were  obliged  to  cut  before  Europe  in  the 
January  of  1871.  Events,  which  every  one,  except  their 
ex-Emperor  and  his  government,  had  predicted  as  inevitable, 
had  followed  one  another  with  a  disastrous  rapidity,  leaving 
them,  after  each  one,  bouches  beantes,  incapable  of  deciding 
whether  the  most  appropriate  gesture  to  express  their  atti- 
tude would  be  one  of  applause,  of  hisses,  or  of  weeping. 

Only  six  months  had  elapsed  since  the  afternoon  of  the 
Emperor's  reception,  at  St.  Cloud,  of  the  members  of  the 
Senate,  when  M.  Rouher  had  said,  during  the  course  of  his 
address,  in  words  that,  to-day,  sound  as  if  they  must  have 
been  meant  to  be  ironical:  "Your  Majesty  has  occupied  the 
last  four  years  in  perfecting  the  armament  and  organisa- 
tion of  the  army,"  and  since  the  King  of  Prussia  and  the 
Sovereigns  of  South  Germany  had  ordered  the  mobilisation 
of  their  armies.  Six  months!  But  what  a  six  months  of 
bloodshed  and  fury,  of  humiliation  and  defeat. 

The  Emperor  left  St.  Cloud  for  the  seat  of  war  on  July 
28th,  and  went  straight  to  Metz,  where  a  Council  of  War 
was  held  on  August  4,  with  Marshals  Macmahon  and 
Bazaine  in  attendance.  That  very  day  the  Crown  Prince 
of  Prussia  fell  upon  a  portion  of  Macmahon's  army  corps  at 
Weissenburg,  and  all  but  destroyed  it,  killing  its  general, 
Abel  Douay,  and  taking  800  prisoners.  The  next  day  a 
similar  fate  overtook  another  corps,  commanded  by  Mac- 
would  then  have  pushed  on  to  encounter  the  Prussians.  But  the  army  at 
Metz,  instead  of  150,000  men,  only  mustered  100,000;  that  of  Strassburg  only 
40,000  instead  of  100,000;  whilst  the  corps  of  Marshal  Canrobert  had  still 
one  division  at  Paris,  and  another  at  Soissons;  his  artillery  as  well  as  his 
cavalry  were  not  ready.  Further  no  army  corps  was  even  yet  completely 
furnished  with  the  equipments  necessary  for  taking  the  field. — Campagne  de 
1870;  des  Causes  qui  ont  ameni  la  Capitulation  at  Sedan,  Par  un  Officier 
attach^  &  l'6tat  Major-General.  Bruxelles. 


124  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1870- 

mahon  himself  on  the  hills  above  Worth,  when  6000  men 
were  killed  or  taken  prisoner,  and  no  less  than  thirty  pieces 
of  artillery  with  six  mitrailleuses  were  captured.  Whilst 
the  latter  engagement  was  actually  in  progress  General 
Froissard's  army  corps,  which  was  holding  the  heights  above 
Saarbruck,  was  driven  back  in  confusion  and  with  great 
loss  upon  Metz. 

The  news  of  these  events  fell  upon  the  ears  of  startled 
Europe  on  August  8.  A  fiasco,  so  hurried  and  hopeless, 
had  not  been  contemplated.  At  first  a  false  report  had 
reached  Paris  of  a  grand  victory  won  by  Macmahon,  who 
was  supposed  to  have  captured  the  Crown  Prince  of  Prussia 
with  all  his  army.  The  enthusiastic  excitement  had  been 
unbounded.  Gradually  the  truth  was  borne  in  upon  the 
unhappy  people,  and  a  hopeless  reaction  was  the  natural 
result.  Napoleon's  apologetic  telegrams  from  Metz  did  not 
cheer  his  subjects;  even  the  fourth  of  a  series  of  five  contain- 
ing these  words,  Tout  pent  se  retablir,  brought  little  hope  to 
their  hearts,  for  it  was  impossible  not  to  be  aware  of  the  fact 
that,  although  the  war  was  but  three  weeks  old,  the  Prus- 
sian invasion  of  France  was  going  successfully  and  steadily 
forward. 

But  France  was  still  an  Empire,  and,  on  the  morning  of 
August  7,  the  Empress-Regent  presided  over  a  ministerial 
council  at  5  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  convoked  the  cham- 
bers, who  met  on  the  Qth,  when  the  Ollivier  Ministry  resigned. 
The  department  of  the  Seine  was  declared  in  a  state  of  siege, 
and  a  permanent  council  of  the  Ministry  was  established  at 
the  Tuileries.  The  Ollivier  Ministry  was  replaced  by  one 
under  Count  Palikao. 

It  was  still  possible  for  news  of  the  French  defeats  at  the 
seat  of  war  to  reach  the  capital.  Bazaine's  unsuccessful 
movement  of  retreat  from  Metz  to  Verdun  on  August  15, 
followed  by  the  bloody  battle  of  Gravelotte,  resulting  in  his 
enforced  retirement  into  the  entrenched  camp  of  Metz, 
spread  further  consternation  among  the  Imperial  Ministers 


1871]  THE  BESIEGED  RESIDENT  125 

at  home,  and  preparations  for  a  siege  began  in  earnest. 
General  Trochu  was  appointed  Commander-in-Chief  of  all 
the  forces  in  Paris  on  August  17. 

Sedan  was  fought  on  the  first  of  September,  and  on  the 
second,  the  Emperor  of  the  French  sent  his  sword  to  the 
King  of  Prussia,  who  thereupon  appointed  him  a  residence 
as  a  prisoner  of  war.  Two  days  later  the  advance  guard  of 
the  Prussian  army  at  Sedan  set  out  for  Paris. 

It  is  to  the  columns  of  the  Daily  News,1  that  we  must 
turn  for  the  most  authentic  account  of  the  way  in  which 
Paris  took  the  news  of  Sedan.  Although  Labouchere  was 
not  yet  the  official  correspondent  from  Paris,  he  nevertheless 
sent  letters  to  Fleet  Street  dealing  with  matters  connected 
with  the  crisis,  which  were  published  above  the  signature  of 
a  "Parisian  Resident." 

"The  news  of  the  Emperor's  capture,"  he  writes  on 
September  4,  "reached  the  foreign  embassies  here  at  ten 
yesterday  morning.  At  about  8  o'clock  it  began  to  be 
rumoured  that  the  Emperor  and  Macmahon's  army  had 
surrendered.  I  saw  a  crowd  of  about  2000  men  going  down 
the  Boulevard,  and  shouting  'La  dtch&ance.'  I  took  the 
arm  of  a  patriot,  and  we  all  went  together  to  the  Louvre  to 
interview  General  Trochu.  He  came  out  after  we  had 
shouted  for  him  about  half-an-hour,  and  a  deputation  had 
gone  in  to  him.  There  was  a  dead  silence  as  soon  as  he 
appeared,  so  what  he  said  could  be  distinctly  heard.  He  told 
us  that  the  news  of  the  capture  of  the  Emperor  was  true, 
and  that  as  for  arms  he  could  not  give  more  than  he  had, 
and  he  regretted  to  say  that  the  millions  on  paper  were  not 
forthcoming." 

In  the  course  of  the  next  twenty-four  hours  a  bloodless 
revolution  was  accomplished  in  Paris.  On  Sunday  after- 
noon Labouchere  got  into  a  carriage  and  drove  about  the 
city,  noting  everything  he  saw.  "The  weather  was  beau- 

1  Quotations  in  this  chapter  not  otherwise  specified  have  been  taken  from 
the  columns  of  the  Daily  News,  August,  1870- January,  1871. 


126  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1870- 

tiful,"  he  wrote;  "it  was  one  of  the  most  glorious  early 
September  days  ever  seen.  I  drove  slowly  along  the  quay 
parallel  with  the  Orangerie  of  the  Tuileries  before  the  Palace. 
The  Tuileries  gardens  were  full  of  people.  I  learned  that, 
in  the  morning,  orders  had  been  given  to  close  the  gates, 
but  that,  half-an-hour  before  I  passed,  the  people  had  forced 
them  open,  and  that  neither  the  troops  nor  the  people  made 
any  resistance.  My  coachman,  who,  I  dare  say,  was  an 
Imperialist  yesterday,  but  was  a  very  strong  Republican 
to-day,  pointed  out  to  me  several  groups  of  people  bearing 
red  flags.  I  told  him  that  the  tricolour,  betokening  the 
presence  of  the  Empress,  still  floated  from  the  central  tower 
of  the  Tuileries.  While  I  was  speaking,  and  at  exactly 
twenty  minutes  past  three,  I  saw  that  flag  taken  down. 
That  is  an  event  in  a  man's  life  not  to  be  forgotten.  Cross- 
ing over  the  Pont  de  Solferino  to  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  I  wit- 
nessed an  extraordinary  sight  indeed.  From  the  windows 
of  those  great  barracks,  formerly  peopled  with  troops,  every 
man  of  whom  was  supposed  to  be  ready  to  die  for  his  Emperor, 
I  saw  soldiers  smiling,  waving  handkerchiefs,  and  responding 
to  the  cries  of  '  Vive  la  Republique. '  Nay,  strangers  fell  on 
each  other's  necks  and  kissed  each  other  with  'effusion.' 
In  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Pont  Neuf ,  I  saw  people  on  the 
tops  of  ladders  busily  pulling  down  the  Emperor's  bust, 
which  the  late  loyalty  of  the  people  had  induced  them  to 
stick  about  in  all  possible  and  impossible  places.  I  saw  the 
busts  carried  in  mock  procession  to  the  parapets  of  the  Pont 
Neuf  and  thrown  into  the  Seine,  clapping  of  hands  and  hearty 
laughter  greeting  the  splash  which  the  graven  image  of  the 
mighty  monarch  made  in  the  water.  I  went  as  far  as  the 
Hotel  de  Ville,  and  found  it  in  possession  of  his  Majesty  the 
Sovereign  People.  Blouses  were  in  every  one  of  M.  Hauss- 
mann's  balconies.  How  they  got  there  I  do  not  know.  I 
presume  that  M.  Chevreau  did  not  invite  them.  But  they 
got  in  somehow  without  violence.  The  great  square  in 
front  of  the  H6tel  de  Ville  was  full  of  the  National  Guards, 


1871]  THE  BESIEGED  RESIDENT  127 

most  of  them  without  uniform.  They  carried  the  butts  of 
their  muskets  in  the  air,  in  token  that  they  were  fraternising 
with  the  people.  The  most  perfect  good  humour  prevailed. 
Portraits  of  the  Emperor  and  Empress,  which  many  of  your 
readers  must  have  seen  in  the  Hdtel  de  Ville  ballrooms, 
were  thrown  out  of  the  window  and  the  people  trod  and 
danced  on  the  canvas.  On  leaving  the  H6tel  de  Ville  I 
saw,  in  the  Avenue  Victoria,  M.  Henri  Rochefort, '  let  out  of 
prison  as  a  logical  sequence  of  events  but  half-an-hour 
before.  He  was  on  a  triumphal  car,  and  wore  a  scarlet 
scarf.  He  was  escorted  by  an  immense  mob,  crying,  '  Vive 
Rochefort ! '  He  looked  in  far  better  health  than  I  expected 
to  see  him  after  his  long  imprisonment,  and  his  countenance 
beamed  with  delight.  He  had  seen  his  desire  on  his  enemy." 

At  four  o'clock  on  the  same  day  the  Republic  was  pro- 
claimed at  the  H6tel  de  Ville,  with  a  provisional  Government 
composed  of  the  following  members :  MM.  Gambetta,  Jules 
Favre,  Pelletan,  Rochefort,  Jules  Ferry,  Jules  Simon,  and 
Ernest  Picard.  Keratry  was  appointed  Prefect  of  the  Police 
and  Arago  the  Mayor  of  Paris. 

Meanwhile  the  Prussians  came  nearer  and  nearer.  On 
the  loth,  they  entered  Laon,  and  General  Hame,  who  was 
in  command,  surrendered  the  citadel  in  order  to  save  the 
city.  On  that  day  the  Republican  Government  issued  an 
order  to  all  owners  of  provisions  and  forage  in  the  neighbour- 
hood to  move  their  goods  into  the  capital.  On  the  i8th 
the  Crown  Prince  and  the  third  army  were  at  Chaumes,  and 
two  days  later  the  long  march  of  the  Prussians  was  ended. 
The  Crown  Prince  took  up  his  headquarters  at  Versailles. 
The  Daily  News  correspondent,  Archibald  Forbes,  who  had 
accompanied  the  third  army  from  Worth  to  Sedan,  and  from 
Sedan  to  Paris,  informed  Fleet  Street  that:  "The  fortune 
of  war  has  brought  the  Prussians  to  the  Hampton  Court 
of  the  French  capital — has  placed  them  at  the  very  gates  of 

1  He  had  been  undergoing  a  term  of  imprisonment  for  certain  articles 
written  in  the  Marseillaise. 


128  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1870- 

Paris.  I  need  say  no  further  word  to  make  the  situation 
more  striking.  Here  are  the  dark  blue  uniforms  and  the 
spiked  helmets  in  the  stately  avenues  of  Versailles.  The 
barracks  of  the  Imperial  Guard  give  ample  quarters  to  King 
William's  soldiery,  and  there  have  been  found  immense 
stores  of  hay  and  oats  which  will  make  the  Prussian  horses 
fat,  if  only  rest  enough  be  given  them  for  feeding." 

From  that  day  until  the  end  of  the  siege  no  regular  mail 
went  out  of  Paris.  Balloons  and  pigeons  carried  the  news 
of  the  imprisoned  inhabitants  into  the  provinces  and  beyond 
the  seas.  Sometimes  a  letter  would  be  successfully  fixed 
between  the  double  soles  of  a  crafty  man's  boots, T  who  would, 
on  some  pretext  or  another,  succeed  in  making  his  way 
through  the  Prussian  lines,  or  a  note  would  be  rolled  up 
into  a  ball  and  be  concealed  in  a  pot  of  pomade  and  so 
proceed  in  unctuous  quiet  on  its  way  out  of  the  prison  into 
the  open.  Henry  Labouchere,  some  twenty-five  years  later, 
described  how  he  managed  to  get  his  letters  to  the  Daily 
News:2 

"More  of  my  letters  reached  their  destination,  I  believe, 
than  those  of  other  correspondents.  The  reason  was  this. 
The  correspondents  waited  on  Jules  Favre,  and  asked  him 
to  afford  them  facilities  for  sending  their  letters.  He  kindly 
said  that  he  would,  and  told  us  that  whenever  a  balloon 
started  we  might  give  them,  made  up  in  a  parcel,  to  the  man 
in  charge,  who  would  make  it  his  business  to  transmit  them 

1 1  quote  a  few  lines — the  only  legible  ones — from  a  letter,  addressed  to 
his  mother,  which  Labouchere  sent  out  of  Paris,  fastened  between  the  double 
sole  of  a  man's  boot.  It  looks  as  if  the  bearer  must  have  waded  through 
water,  and  the  marks  of  the  cobbler's  nails  are  visible  all  over  it.  "  November 
6,  1870.  This  goes  out  in  a  citizen's  boot.  If  he  is  caught,  he  will  be  shot, 
which  is  his  affair — only  you  will  not  get  it.  The  position  is  utterly  hopeless. 
We  shall  be  bombarded  in  a  week.  This  hotel  has  two  hundred  wounded  in 
it.  I  got  into  the  H6tel  de  Ville  on  Monday  with  the  mob.  Such  a  scene. 
I  have  got  a  pass  from  General  Vinoy,  so  I  get  a  good  view  of  all  the  military 
operations.  ...  I  do  not  know  if  my  letters  to  the  D.  N.  arrive.  ..." 

a  J.  M'Carthy  and  Sir  J.  Robinson,  The  Daily  News  Jubilee.  A  Retrospect 
of  Fifty  Years  of  the  Queen's  Reign. 


1871]  THE  BESIEGED  RESIDENT  129 

to  their  destination  so  soon  as  the  balloon  touched  land 
outside.  There  was  a  complacent  smile  on  his  countenance 
when  we  gratefully  accepted  this  offer  that  led  me  to  suspect 
that,  whatever  might  happen  to  the  letters,  they  were  not 
likely  to  reach  the  newspaper  offices  to  which  they  were 
addressed,  unless  they  lauded  everything.  So,  instead  of 
falling  a  victim  to  this  confidence  trick,  I  placed  my  letters 
under  cover  to  a  friend  in  London,  and  put  them  into  a  post- 
box,  calculating  that,  as  each  balloon  took  out  about  twenty 
thousand  letters,  those  posted  in  the  ordinary  way  would 
not  be  opened." 

The  letters,  posted  as  Labouchere  described  above,  were 
written  on  tissue  paper  and  addressed  to  Miss  Henrietta 
Hodson.  She,  immediately  on  receipt  of  the  manuscript, 
carried  it  to  Fleet  Street,  where  it  was  rightly  considered 
copy  of  the  very  first  order. 

Labouchere,  as  soon  as  the  siege  had  really  begun,  tried 
in  vain  to  induce  General  Trochu  to  allow  him  to  accompany 
him  on  his  rides  to  the  ramparts  of  the  city,  pointing  out 
that  the  newspaper  correspondents  were  always  allowed  to 
accompany  the  Prussian  staffs.  Trochu  would  not  hear  of 
the  scheme,  and  explained  that  he  himself  had  been  within 
an  inch  of  being  shot  because  he  had  had  the  impudence  to 
say  that  he  was  the  Governor  of  Paris. 

"From  Trochu,"  writes  Labouchere,  on  September  25, 
"I  went  to  pay  a  few  calls.  I  found  every  one  engaged  in 
measuring  the  distance  from  the  Prussian  batteries  to  his 
particular  house.  One  friend  I  found  seated  in  a  cellar  with 
a  quantity  of  mattresses  over  it,  to  make  it  bomb-proof. 
He  emerged  from  his  subterraneous  Patmos  to  talk  to  me, 
ordered  his  servant  to  pile  on  a  few  more  mattresses,  and  then 
retreated.  Anything  so  dull  as  existence  here  it  is  difficult 
to  imagine.  Before  the  day  is  out  one  gets  sick  and  tired 
of  the  one  single  topic  of  conversation.  We  are  like  the 
people  at  Cremorne  waiting  for  the  fireworks  to  begin;  and 
I  really  do  believe  that  if  this  continues  much  longer,  the 


130  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1870- 

most  cowardly  will  welcome  the  bombs  as  a  relief  from  the 
oppressive  ennui" 

A  letter  to  his  mother, '  dated  September  26,  gives  the 
following  account  of  his  life  in  Paris:  "I  wrote  a  day  or  two 
ago  by  balloon,  but  probably  my  letter  is  in  the  moon.  A 
man  is  going  to  try  and  get  through  the  lines  with  this,  and 
a  letter  to  the  Daily  News.  We  are  all  right  here.  The 
Prussians  fire  at  the  forts,  but  as  yet  they  have  not  bom- 
barded the  town.  Provisions  are  already  very  dear.  It  is 
rather  dull — in  fact  a  little  bombarding  would  be  a  relief  to 
our  ennui.  Everybody  is  swaggering  about  in  uniform. 
I  went  round  the  inner  barricades  a  day  or  two  ago  with  the 
citizen  Rochefort." 

A  few  days  later  he  wrote  to  the  Daily  News:  "The 
presence  of  the  Prussians  at  the  gates,  and  the  sound  of  the 
cannon,  have  at  last  sobered  this  frivolous  people.  French- 
men indeed  cannot  live  without  exaggeration,  and  for  the 
last  twenty-four  hours  they  have  taken  to  walking  about  as 
if  they  were  guests  at  their  own  funerals.  It  is  hardly  in 
their  line  to  play  the  justum  et  tenacem  of  Horace.  Always 
acting,  they  are  now  acting  the  part  of  Spartans.  It  is 
somewhat  amusing  to  see  the  stern  gloom  on  the  face  of 
patriots  one  meets,  who  were  singing  and  shouting  a  few 
days  ago — more  particularly  as  it  is  by  no  means  difficult 
to  distinguish  beneath  this  outward  gloom  a  certain  keen 
relish,  founded  upon  the  feeling  that  the  part  is  being  well 
played." 

On  the  evening  of  the  same  day  Labouchere  took  his 
strolls  abroad,  and  came  to  the  Avenue  de  L'Imp&ratrice, 
where  he  found  a  large  crowd  gazing  upon  the  Fort  of  Mont 
Valerien.  This  fort,  from  being  the  strongest  for  defence, 
was  particularly  beloved  by  the  Parisians.  "  They  love  it 
as  a  sailor  loves  his  ship,"  writes  Labouchere.  He  witnessed 
the  following  incident :  "  If  I  were  near  enough,"  said  a  young 

1  Mrs.  Labouchere  had  been  a  widow  since  1863,  and  was  now  living  at 
Oakdene,  near  Dorking. 


1871]  THE  BESIEGED  RESIDENT  131 

girl,  "I  would  kiss  it."  "Let  me  carry  your  kiss  to  it," 
responded  a  Mobile,  and  the  pair  embraced,  amid  the  cheers 
of  the  people  around  them. 

The  question  of  domestic  economy  had  not  yet  become 
a  pressing  one,  as  far  as  the  "besieged  resident"  was  con- 
cerned. He  was  lodged  au  quatrieme  at  the  Grand  Hotel, 
and  wrote  during  the  first  week  of  the  siege :  "  I  presume  if  the 
siege  lasts  long  enough,  dogs,  rats,  and  cats  will  be  tariffed. 
I  have  got  a  thousand  francs  with  me.  It  is  impossible  to 
draw  upon  England;  consequently,  I  see  a  moment  coming 
when,  unless  rats  are  reasonable,  I  shall  not  be  able  to  afford 
myself  the  luxury  of  one  oftener  than  once  a  week."  And  a 
fortnight  later  he  writes:  "My  landlord  presents  me  every 
week  with  my  bill.  The  ceremony  seems  to  please  him, 
and  does  me  no  harm.  I  have  pasted  upon  my  mantelpiece 
the  decree  of  the  Government  adjourning  payment  of  rent, 
and  the  right  to  read  and  re-read  this  document  is  all  that 
he  will  get  from  me  until  the  end  of  the  siege.  Yesterday 
I  ordered  myself  a  warm  suit  of  clothes;  I  chose  a  tailor  with 
a  German  name,  so  I  feel  convinced  he  will  not  venture  to 
ask  for  payment  under  the  present  circumstances,  and  if  he 
does  he  will  not  get  it.  If  my  funds  run  out  before  the  siege 
is  over,  I  shall  have  at  least  the  pleasure  to  think  that  this 
has  not  been  caused  by  improvidence." 

He  wrote  to  his  mother  on  October  10,  as  follows:  "I 
send  this  by  balloon.  The  smaller  the  letter,  the  more 
chance  it  has  to  go.  We  are  all  thriving  in  here,  though  we 
have  heard  absolutely  nothing  from  the  outside  world  for  a 
fortnight.  I  don't  know  if  my  letters  to  the  Daily  News 
arrive.  Yesterday,  I  could  only  get  sheeps'  trotters  and 
pickled  cauliflower  for  dinner.  We  boast  awfully  of  what 
we  are  going  to  do,  but,  as  yet,  all  our  sorties  have  been 
driven  back,  and  our  forts  stun  our  ears  by  firing  upon  stray 
rabbits  and  Uhlans.  If  ever  my  letters  to  the  Daily  News 
do  not  arrive  and  come  back  here,  I  shall  be  shot,  but  I 
don't  think  that  they  will.  I  am  convinced  that  the  pro- 


132  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1870- 

visions  will  soon  give  out.  We  go  about  saying  that  we 
cannot  be  beaten,  because  we  have  made  a  'pact  with 
death/" 

And  again  on  the  2 1st :  "  We  are  getting  on  very  well  here. 
Nothing  has  come  in  since  the  commencement  of  the  siege, 
and  no  one  can  get  out.  They  say  there  are  provisions  to 
last  until  February,  so  we  shall  have  a  dose  of  our  own  society. 
About  one  sixth  of  the  town  is  now  commanded  by  the 
Prussian  batteries,  but  we  don't  know  whether  they  will 
fire  or  not.  I  am  living  very  well  on  horse  and  cat — the 
latter  excellent — like  rabbit,  only  better.  Our  people  brag 
very  much,  but  do  little  more.  The  Ultras  are  going  ahead 
— they  have  taken  now  to  denouncing  crucifixes,  which  they 
call  ridiculous  nudities — a  mayor  has  had  them  all  removed- 
he  then  announced  that  no  marriages  were  to  take  place  in 
his  arrondissement — marriage  being  an  insult  upon  honour- 
able citizens  who  did  not  approve  of  this  relic  of  superstition. 
This  was  a  little  too  much,  so  he  was  removed,  and  we  are 
now  free  to  marry  or  not  according  to  our  tastes.  I  am 
the  intimate  friend  of  Louis  Blanc,  so  no  one  touches  me." 

One  of  the  most  curious  things  about  these  letters  by 
balloon  was  the  irregularity  in  their  delivery.  It  was  not 
merely  that  one  balloon  reached  friendly  or  neutral  territory 
in  safety,  while  another  did  not.  Of  half  a  dozen  letters 
coming  by  the  same  balloon,  two  would  be  delivered,  say, 
on  the  6th  of  the  month,  one  on  the  loth,  two  on  the  I5th, 
and  the  last  on  the  2Oth.  This  greatly  puzzled  the  recipients 
at  the  time.  The  explanation  turned  out  to  be  that  the 
bag  containing  the  first  letter  had  been  sent  off  immediately 
the  aeronaut  descended,  whereas  the  others  underwent  a 
variety  of  adventures.  Frequently  a  balloon  fell  at  or 
near  a  place  of  German  occupation.  The  aeronaut  would 
come  down  at  a  run,  hurry  off  with  one  bag,  and  give  the 
others  to  friendly  peasants,  who  secreted  them  until  an 
opportunity  occurred  for  getting  them  safely  to  the  nearest 
post-town.  Usually  the  letters  came  in  beautiful  order, 


THE  BESIEGED  RESIDENT  133 

without  a  speck  upon  them  to  show  an  unusual  mode  of 
transit.  One  batch,  however,  had  to  be  fished  out  of  the 
sea,  off  the  Cornish  coast.  In  one  case  a  letter  was  delivered 
in  wonderfully  quick  time.  Dispatched  from  Paris  on  a 
Monday  night,  it  was  delivered  in  London  on  the  following 
evening. l 

Apparently  his  "made  in  Germany"  suit  did  not  wear 
as  well  as  might  have  been  expected,  for  it  was  only  December 
when  he  described  his  wardrobe  as  follows: 

"My  pea-jacket  is  torn  and  threadbare,  my  trousers  are 
frayed  at  the  bottom,  and  of  many  colours — like  Joseph's 
coat.  As  for  my  linen,  I  will  only  say  that  the  washer- 
women have  struck  work,  as  they  have  no  fuel.  I  believe 
my  shirt  was  once  white,  but  I  am  not  sure.  I  invested  a 
few  weeks  ago  in  a  pair  of  cheap  boots.  They  are  my  tor- 
ment. They  have  split  in  various  places,  and  I  wear  a  pair 
of  gaiters — purple,  like  those  of  a  respectable  ecclesiastic — 
to  cover  the  rents.  I  bought  them  on  the  Boulevard,  and 
at  the  same  stall  I  bought  a  bright  blue  handkerchief  which 
was  going  cheap;  this  I  wear  round  my  neck.  My  upper 
man  resembles  that  of  a  dog-stealer,  my  lower  man  that  of  a 
bishop.  My  buttons  are  turning  my  hair  grey.  When  I 
had  more  than  one  change  of  raiment  these  appendages 
remained  in  their  places,  now  they  drop  off  as  though  I  were 
a  moulting  fowl.  I  have  to  pin  myself  together  elaborately, 
and  whenever  I  want  to  get  anything  out  of  my  pocket,  I 
have  cautiously  to  unpin  myself,  with  the  dread  of  falling 
to  pieces  before  my  eyes." 

In  another  place  Labouchere  describes  his  head-dress, 
which  was  quite  eccentric  enough  to  fit  in  with  the  rest  of  his 
travesty:  "I  have  bought  myself  a  sugar-loaf  hat  of  the 
first  Republic,  and  am  consequently  regarded  with  deference. 
'The  style  is  the  man,'  said  Buffon;  had  he  lived  here  now 
he  would  rather  have  said, '  The  hat  is  the  man. '  An  English 
doctor  who  goes  about  in  a  regulation  chimney-pot  has 

1  Robinson    Fifty  Years  of  Fleet  Street. 


134  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1870- 

already  been  arrested  twenty-seven  times.  I,  thanks  to  my 
revolutionary  hat,  have  not  been  arrested  once.  I  have 
only  to  glance  from  under  its  brim  at  any  one  for  him  to 
quail." 

The  extracts  which  Labouchere  copied  from  the  news- 
papers for  the  benefit  of  his  London  readers  are  extremely 
amusing,  and  give,  as  no  other  method  of  narration  could 
have  done,  a  good  idea  of  the  spirit  which  the  leaders  of  the 
people  thought  fit  to  try  and  promulgate  amongst  the  Pa- 
risians. One  morning,  for  instance,  he  learned  that  "  Moltke 
is  dead,  that  the  Crown  Prince  is  dying  of  a  fever,  that 
Bismarck  is  anxious  to  negotiate  but  is  prevented  by  the 
obstinacy  of  the  King,  that  three  hundred  Prussians  from 
the  Polish  provinces  have  come  over  to  our  side,  that  the 
Bavarian  and  Wurtemberg  troops  are  in  a  state  of  incipient 
rebellion.  From  the  fact  that  the  Prussian  outposts  have 
withdrawn  to  a  greater  distance  from  the  forts,  it  is  probable 
that  they  despair  of  success,  and  in  a  few  days  will  raise  the 
siege.  Most  of  the  newspapers  make  merry  over  the  faults 
in  grammar  in  a  letter  which  has  been  discovered  from  the 
Empress  to  the  Emperor,  although  I  doubt  whether  there 
is  one  Frenchman  in  the  world  who  could  write  Spanish  as 
well  as  the  Empress  does  French." 

The  New  Year's  address  to  the  Prussians,  published  in 
the  Gaulois,  is  a  masterpiece  of  journalistic  invective,  and 
the  relish  with  which  the  besieged  resident  copied  it  for  the 
benefit  of  his  London  readers  may  well  be  imagined: 

"You  Prussian  beggars,  you  Prussian  scoundrels,  you 
bandits  and  you  Vandals,  you  have  taken  everything  from 
us;  you  have  ruined  us;  you  are  starving  us;  you  are  bom- 
barding us;  and  we  have  a  right  to  hate  you  with  a  royal 
hatred.  Well,  perhaps  one  day  we  might  have  forgiven  you 
your  rapine  and  your  murders;  our  towns  that  you  have 
sacked;  your  heavy  yokes;  your  infamous  treasons.  The 
French  race  is  so  light  of  heart,  so  kindly,  that  we  might 
perhaps  in  time  have  forgotten  our  resentments.  What  we 


THE  BESIEGED  RESIDENT  135 

never  shall  forget  will  be  this  New  Year's  Day,  which  we 
have  been  forced  to  pass  without  news  from  our  families. 
You,  at  least,  have  had  letters  from  your  Gretcher  s,  astound- 
ing letters,  very  likely,  in  which  the  melancholy  blondes 
with  blue  eyes  make  a  wonderful  literary  salad,  composed 
of  sour  kraut,  berlin  wool,  forget-me-nots,  pillage,  bombard- 
ment, pure  love,  and  transcendental  philosophy.  But  you 
like  all  this  just  as  you  like  jam  with  your  mutton.  You 
have  what  pleases  you.  Your  ugly  faces  receive  kisses  by 
the  post.  But  you  kill  our  pigeons,  you  intercept  our  letters, 
you  shoot  at  our  balloons  with  your  absurd  fusils  de  rempart, 
and  you  burst  out  into  a  heavy  German  grin  when  you  get 
hold  of  one  of  our  bags,  which  are  carrying  to  those  we  love 
our  vows,  our  hopes,  our  remembrances,  our  regrets,  our 
hearts."  And  so  on. 

Labouchere  had  not  a  high  opinion  of  French  journalism 
during  the  investment.  "A  French  journalist,"  he  says, 
"even  when  he  is  not  obliged  to  do  so,  generally  invents  his 
facts,  and  then  reasons  upon  them  with  wonderful  ingenuity. 
One  would  think  that  just  at  present  a  Parisian  would  do 
well  to  keep  his  breath  to  cool  his  own  porridge.  Such, 
however,  is  not  his  opinion.  He  thinks  that  he  has  a  mission 
to  guide  and  instruct  the  world,  and  this  mission  he  man- 
fully fulfils  in  defiance  of  Prussians  and  Prussian  cannons. 
It  is  true,  that  he  knows  rather  less  of  foreign  countries  than 
an  intelligent  Japanese  Daimio  may  be  supposed  to  know  of 
Tipperary,  but,  by  some  curious  law  of  nature,  the  less  he 
knows  of  a  subject,  the  more  strongly  does  he  feel  impelled 
to  write  about  it.  I  read  a  very  clever  article  this  morning 
pointing  out  that  if  we  are  not  on  our  guard,  our  Empire  in 
India  will  come  to  an  end  by  a  Russian  fleet  attacking  it 
from  the  Caspian  Sea.  When  one  thinks  how  very  easy  it 
would  have  been  for  the  author  not  to  have  written  about 
the  Caspian  Sea,  one  is  at  once  surprised  and  grateful  to 
him  for  having  called  our  attention  to  the  danger  which 
menaces  us  in  that  quarter  of  the  globe." 


I36  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1870- 

His  estimate  of  General  Trochu  was,  on  the  whole,  the 
fairest  that  was  made  at  the  period.  During  the  earliest 
days  of  the  siege  it  was  supposed  that  Trochu  had  a  plan, 
and,  on  being  questioned  about  it,  he  admitted  that  he  had. 
He  went  on  to  say  that  he  guaranteed  its  success,  but  that 
he  should  reveal  it  to  no  one,  until  the  right  moment — in 
fact,  he  had  deposited  it  for  safety  with  his  notary,  Maitre 
Duclos,  who,  in  the  event  of  his  being  killed,  would  produce 
it.  As  time  wore  on  and  no  plan  was  forthcoming  from  the 
General,  it  became  very  evident  that  it  could  have  been 
nothing  more  elaborate  than  a  determination  to  capitulate 
as  soon  as  Paris  was  starved  out.  When  the  siege  was  nearly 
five  weeks  old  Labouchere  wrote: 

"Every  day  this  siege  lasts,  convinces  me  that  Gen. 
Trochu  is  not  the  right  man  in  the  right  place.  He  writes 
long-winded  letters,  utters  Spartan  aphorisms,  and  complains 
of  his  colleagues,  his  generals,  and  his  troops.  The  confidence 
which  is  felt  in  him  is  rapidly  diminishing.  He  is  a  good, 
respectable  man,  without  a  grain  of  genius,  or  of  that  fierce, 
indomitable  energy  which  sometimes  replaces  it.  He  would 
make  a  good  minister  of  war  in  quiet  times,  but  he  is  about 
as  fit  to  command  in  the  present  emergency  as  Mr.  Card  well1 
would  be.  His  two  principal  military  subordinates,  Vinoy 
and  Ducrot,  are  excellent  Generals  of  division,  but  nothing 
more.  As  for  his  civilian  colleagues  they  are  one  and  all 
hardly  more  practical  than  Professor  Fawcett.  Each  has 
some  crotchet  of  his  own,  each  likes  to  dogmatise  and  to 
speechify,  and  each  considers  the  others  to  be  idiots,  and  has 
a  small  following  of  his  own,  which  regards  him  as  a- species 
of  divinity.  They  are  philosophers,  orators,  and  legists, 
but  they  are  neither  practical  men  nor  statesmen."  And 
when  the  siege  was  over  he  summed  up  the  case  for  Trochu 
thus:  "What  will  be  the  verdict  of  history  on  the  defence? 
Who  knows!  On  the  one  hand,  the  Parisians  have  kept  a 
powerful  army  at  bay  for  longer  than  was  expected ;  on  the 

1  Secretary  of  War  in  Mr.  Gladstone's  6rst  Ministry. 


1871]  THE  BESIEGED  RESIDENT  137 

other  hand,  every  sortie  that  they  have  made  has  been 
unsuccessful — every  attempt  to  arrest  the  approach  of  the 
besiegers  has  failed.  Passively  and  inertly  they  have  al- 
lowed their  store  of  provisions  to  grow  less  and  less,  until 
they  have  been  forced  to  capitulate,  without  their  defences 
having  been  stormed,  or  the  cannon  silenced.  The  General 
complains  of  his  soldiers,  the  soldiers  complain  of  their 
General;  and  on  both  sides  there  is  cause  of  complaint. 
Trochu  is  not  a  Todleben.  His  best  friends  describe  him 
as  a  weak  sort  of  military  Hamlet,  wise  of  speech,  but  weak 
and  hesitating  in  action — making  plans  and  then  criticising 
them,  instead  of  accomplishing  them.  As  a  commander 
his  task  was  a  difficult  one;  when  the  siege  commenced  he 
had  no  army;  when  the  army  was  formed  it  was  encom- 
passed by  earthworks  and  redoubts  so  strong  that  even 
better  soldiers  would  have  failed  to  carry  them.  As  a  states- 
man, he  never  was  master  of  the  situation.  He  followed 
rather  than  led  public  opinion.  Success  is  the  criterion 
of  ability  in  this  country,  and  poor  Trochu  is  as  politically 
dead  as  though  he  never  had  lived." 

As  time  wore  on  the  question  of  meals  in  the  besieged 
city  naturally  became  one  of  absorbing  moment.  "  I  went," 
says  Labouchere,  on  December  21,  "to  see  what  was  going 
on  in  the  house  of  a  friend  of  mine,  in  the  Avenue  de  L'lm- 
p6ratrice,  who  has  left  Paris.  The  servant  who  was  in 
charge  told  me  that  up  there  they  had  not  been  able  to 
obtain  bread  for  three  days,  and  that  the  last  time  he  had 
presented  his  ticket,  he  had  been  given  about  half  an  inch 
of  cheese.  'How  do  you  live  then?'  I  asked.  After  look- 
ing mysteriously  round  to  see  that  no  one  was  watching  us, 
he  took  me  down  into  the  cellar,  and  pointed  to  some  meat 
in  a  barrel.  '  It  is  half  a  horse, '  he  said,  in  the  tone  of  a  man 
who  is  showing  some  one  the  corpse  of  his  murdered  victim. 
'A  neighbouring  coachman  killed  him,  and  we  salted  him 
down,  and  divided  him. '  Then  he  opened  a  closet  in  which 
sat  a  huge  cat.  4I  am  fattening  her  up  for  Christmas  day; 


138  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1870- 

we  mean  to  serve  her  up,  surrounded  with  mice  like  sausages,' 
he  observed."  On  January  6  Labouchere  notes:  "Yester- 
day I  had  a  slice  of  Pollux  for  dinner.  Pollux  and  his 
brother  Castor  are  two  elephants,  which  have  been  killed. 
It  was  tough,  coarse,  and  oily,  and  I  do  not  recommend 
English  families  to  eat  elephant  as  long  as  they  can  get  beef 
or  mutton.  Many  of  the  restaurants  are  closed,  owing  to 
want  of  fuel.  They  are  recommended  to  use  lamps;  but 
although  French  cooks  can  do  wonders  with  very  poor 
materials,  when  they  are  called  upon  to  cook  an  elephant 
with  a  spirit  lamp  the  thing  is  almost  beyond  their  ingenuity. 
Castor  and  Pollux's  trunks  sold  for  forty-five  francs  a  pound ; 
the  other  parts  of  the  interesting  twins  fetched  about  ten 
francs  a  pound." 

He  wrote  to  his  mother  on  January  81:  "Here  we  still 
are.  For  the  last  few  days  the  Prussians  have  taken  to 
throwing  shells  into  the  town,  which  makes  things  more 
lively.  I  do  not  think  it  can  last  much  longer.  It  is  awfully 
cold,  for  all  the  wood  is  freshly  cut  and  will  not  burn.  The 
washerwomen  have  struck  as  they  have  no  fuel,  so  we  all 
wear  very  dirty  shirts.  I  am  in  a  great  fright  of  my  money 
giving  out,  as  none  is  to  be  got  here.  My  dress  is  seedy — 
in  fact  falling  to  pieces.  I  think  I  have  eaten  now  of  every 
animal  which  Noah  had  in  his  ark.2  Since  the  bombard- 
ment the  cannon  makes  a  great  noise.  All  night  it  is  as  if 
doors  were  slamming.  Outside  the  walls  it  is  rather  pretty 
to  see  the  batteries  exchanging  shots.  We  have  heard 
nothing  from  England  since  September,  except  from  scraps 
of  paper  picked  out  of  dead  Prussians'  pockets."  Labou- 
chere was  always  ready  to  recall  to  his  memory  for  conver- 
sational purposes  the  strange  food  he  ate  during  the  siege 

1  This  letter  did  not  reach  London,  E.  C.,  from  whence  it  was  posted  to 
Dorking,  until  Jan.  19. 

3  Captain  Bingham  notes  in  his  diary  for  Dec.  4  that  Henry  Labouchere, 
Frank  Lawley,  Lewis  Wingfield,  and  Quested  Lynch  dined  with  him,  and  that 
they  partook  of  moufflon,  a  kind  of  wild  sheep  which  inhabits  Corsica. — Recol- 
lections of  Paris,  Capt.  Hon.  D.  Bingham. 


1871]  THE  BESIEGED  RESIDENT  139 

of  Paris.  Donkey  apparently  was  his  favourite  dish.  This 
is  what  he  said  on  the  subject : 

"A  donkey  is  infinitely  better  eating  than  beef  or  mutton, 
indeed  I  do  not  know  any  meat  which  is  better.  This  was 
so  soon  discovered  by  the  French,  during  the  siege  of  Paris, 
that  donkey  meat  was  about  five  times  the  price  of  horse 
meat.  At  Voisin's  there  was  almost  every  day  a  joint  of 
cold  donkey  for  breakfast,  and  it  was  greatly  preferred  to 
anything  else.  Let  any  one  who  doubts  the  excellence  of 
cold  donkey  slay  one  of  these  weak-minded  animals,  cook 
him,  and  eat  him."  Rats  he  did  not  appreciate  so  much: 
"The  objection  to  them  is  that  when  cooked  their  flesh  is 
gritty.  This  objection  is,  however,  somewhat  Epicurean, 
for,  except  for  this  grittiness,  they  are  a  wholesome  and 
excellent  article  of  food.  I  am  surprised  that  there  is  not 
a  society  for  the  promotion  of  eating  rats.  Why  should  not 
prisoners  be  fed  with  these  nourishing  and  prolific  little 
animals?" 

His  account  of  how  he  got  a  leg  of  mutton  into  Paris 
after  the  capitulation,  when,  in  spite  of  the  siege  being  raised, 
the  difficulties  of  procuring  food  were  almost  as  insurmount- 
able as  before,  was  one  of  his  most  amusing  contes.  He 
rode  out  to  Versailles,1  where  he  procured  the  longed-for 
joint,  but,  when  he  started  on  his  return  journey,  a  sen- 
tinel of  Versailles  refused  to  allow  the  meat  to  leave  the 
town,  and  actually  took  it  away  from  him.  Desperately 
he  decided  to  appeal  to  the  better  side  of  the  Prussian's 
nature,  and  explained  to  him  that  he  was  in  love,  indeed, 
that  to  love  was  the  fate  of  all  mortals.  The  warrior  sighed 
and  pensively  assented:  Labouchere  judged  that  he  was 
most  likely  thinking  of  his  distant  Gretchen,  and  shame- 
lessly foilowed  up  his  advantage:  "  My  lady  love  is  in  Paris," 

1  "As  soon  as  the  armistice  was  signed,  several  of  the  English  correspondents 
managed  to  get  to  Versailles.  The  first  thing  that  Labouchere  did  on  arriving 
there  was  to  plunge  his  head  into  a  pail  of  milk,  and  he  was  with  difficulty 
weaned." — Recollections  of  Paris,  Capt.  Hon.  D.  Bingham. 


I4o  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1870- 

he  proceeded  pathetically,  "long  have  I  sighed  in  vain.  I 
am  taking  her  now  a  leg  of  mutton — on  this  leg  hangs  all 
my  hope  of  bliss — if  I  present  myself  to  her  with  this  token 
of  my  devotion  she  may  yield  to  my  suit.  Oh,  full  of  feeling, 
beloved  of  beauteous  women,  German  warrior,  can  you 
refuse  me?"  Of  course  the  sentinel  yielded,  and  the  cor- 
respondent, who,  needless  to  say,  had  no  lady  love  in  the 
capital,  bore  it  off  in  triumph.  He  enjoyed  it  for  dinner 
that  evening  in  company  with  Mr.  Frank  Lawley  and  Mr. 
Denis  Bingham,  in  whose  journal  for  that  day  occurs  the 
following  entry: 

"On  their  return  from  Versailles  together,  Labouchere 
and  Lawley  brought  me  a  leg  of  mutton.  And  what  a 
treat  it  was  for  our  small  household  and  dear  neighbours! 
And  an  Italian  lady  brought  us  a  large  loaf  of  white  bread, 
and  we  feasted  and  were  merry,  and  measured  our  girths, 
and  promised  ourselves  that  we  would  soon  get  into  condi- 
tion again,  for  we  were  lamentably  pulled  down."1 

On  February  10,  Labouchere  took  his  departure  from 
Paris,  feeling,  as  he  said,  much  as  Daniel  must  have  done 
on  emerging  from  the  den  of  lions.  Baron  Rothschild  pro- 
cured for  him  a  pass  which  enabled  him  to  take  the  Amiens 
train  at  the  goods  station  within  the  walls  of  the  city,  instead 
of  driving,  as  those  who  were  less  fortunate  were  obliged  to 
do,  to  Gonesse.  The  train  was  drawn  up  before  a  shed  in 
the  midst  of  oceans  of  mud.  It  consisted  of  one  passenger 
carriage,  and  of  a  long  series  of  empty  bullock  vans.  He 
entered  one  of  the  latter  as  the  passenger  van  was  already 
crowded.  At  Breteuil  the  train  waited  for  above  an  hour, 
and  Labouchere,  impatient  of  the  delay,  perceiving  a  Prus- 
sian train  puffing  up,  managed  to  induce  an  official  to  allow 
him  to  get  into  the  luggage  van,  by  which  means  he  was  able 
to  proceed  on  his  way  to  the  destination.  "Having  started 
from  Paris  as  a  bullock,  I  reached  Amiens  at  twelve  o'clock 
as  a  carpet-bag,"  was  the  way  he  described  his  journey. 

1  Capt.  Hon.  D.  Bingham.     Recollections  of  Paris. 


1871]  THE  BESIEGED  RESIDENT  141 

At  Abbeville  the  train  passed  out  of  the  Prussian  lines 
into  the  French,  and  Calais  was  reached  at  7  P.M.  "Right 
glad"  was  the  Paris  correspondent,  to  use  his  own  words, 
to  "eat  a  Calais  supper  and  to  sleep  on  a  Calais  bed."1 

In  his  last  letter  to  the  Daily  News  during  the  war,  Mr. 
Labouchere  lodged  one  other  Parthian  shot  in  the  city 
whose  hospitality  he  had  been  enjoying:  "I  took  my  depar- 
ture from  Paris,"  he  wrote,  "leaving  without  any  very 
poignant  regret,  its  inhabitants  wending  their  way  to  the 
electoral  'urns,'  the  many  revolving  in  their  minds  how 
France  and  Paris  are  to  manage  to  pay  the  little  bill  which 
their  creditor  outside  is  making  up  against  them;  the  few — 
the  very  few — determined  to  die  rather  than  yield,  sitting 
in  the  caf6s  on  the  boulevard,  which  is  to  be,  I  presume, 
their  last  ditch." 

In  one  of  his  earliest  numbers  of  Truth,  Mr.  Labouchere 
gave  a  characteristic  account  of  how  he  behaved  under  fire. 
It  is  worth  quoting  as  illustrative  of  the  naive  frankness  with 
which  he  always  described  those  instinctive  little  actions  of 
human  nature  which  more  sophisticated  persons  usually 
pretend  never  occur.  "I  was  at  some  of  the  engagements 
during  the  Franco- Prussian  War.  The  first  time  that  I 
was  under  fire,  I  felt  that  every  shell  whizzing  through  the 
air  would  infallibly  blow  me  up.  Being  a  non-combatant, 
in  an  unconcerned  sort  of  way,  as  if  I  had  business  to  attend 
to  elsewhere,  I  effected  a  strategical  movement  to  the  rear. 
But,  as  no  shell  had  blown  me  up,  I  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  no  shell  would  blow  me  up,  and  accepted  afterwards 
as  a  natural  state  of  things  which  did  not  concern  me,  the 
fact  that  these  missiles  occasionally  blew  up  other  people." 

1  The  following  gentlemen  of  the  press  were  in  Paris  during  the  siege: 
Charles  Austen  of  the  Times,  Frank  Lawlcy  of  the  Daily  Telegraph,  Henry 
Labouchere  of  the  Daily  News,  Thomas  Gibson  Bowles  of  the  Morning  Post, 
J.  Augustus  O'Shea  of  the  Standard,  Capt.  Bingham,  who  sent  letters  to  the 
Pall  Matt  Gazette,  and  Mr.  Dallas,  who  wrote  both  for  the  Times  and  the 
Daily  News. 


CHAPTER  VII 
LABOUCHERE  AND  BRADLAUGH 

(1880-1881) 

AT  the  general  election  of  1880,  Mr.  Labouchere  found  in 
the  electors  of  Northampton  a  constituency  which  was 
to  remain  faithful  to  him  throughout  his  political  career. 
He  was  described  in  the  local  press  as  the  "nominee  of  the 
moderate  Liberals,"  though,  as  he  explained  in  the  columns 
of  Truth,  a  moderate  Liberal  at  Northampton  was  a  Radical 
anywhere  else.  The  "Radical"  candidate  was  that  upright 
and  greatly  persecuted  man,  Mr.  Charles  Bradlaugh,  who 
merited  far  more  than  Mr.  Labouchere  the  title  of  the  "reli- 
gious member  for  Northampton." x  It  has  often  been  pointed 
out  that  the  difference  between  religious  and  irreligious 
people  does  not  lie  so  much  in  opinion  as  in  temperament. 
Labouchere  had  an  essentially  irreligious  nature,  he  was  a 
born  impie,  as  the  French  say:  Mr.  Bradlaugh  had  the  soul 
of  a  Covenanter.  As  far  as  speculative  religious  opinions 
were  concerned,  they  practically  coincided,  while,  in  the 
general  lines  of  political  opinion,  they  were  quite  at  one. 
Both  were  strong  Radicals  and  strong  anti-socialists. 

Northampton  was  in  1880  one  of  the  most  promising 
Radical    constituencies.2    The    Radical    element    had    for 

1  The  late  Lord  Randolph  Churchill  once  referred  in  the  House  of  Commons 
to  Mr.  Labouchere  (greatly  to  his  delight)  by  this  title. 

3 1  have  followed  in  this  chapter  the  admirable  account  of  Bradlaugh 's 
parliamentary  struggle  given  by  Mr.  J.  M.  Robertson,  M.P.,  in  the  second 
part  of  Mrs.  Bradlaugh  Bonner's  Charles  Bradlaugh:  Life  and  Work. 

142 


i88o-'8i]    LABOUCHERE  AND  BRADLAUGH  143 

many  years  been  very  numerous  among  the  population, 
but  unfortunately  the  majority  of  the  workers  had  no  vote. 
The  Household  Suffrage  Act  of  1868  remedied  this  state  of 
things  to  some  extent.  The  work  of  the  Freehold  Land 
Society  developed  the  scope  of  the  remedy.  This  most 
practical  expression  of  democratic  ideals,  by  making  free- 
holders of  workmen,  raised  the  numbers  of  the  electorate 
from  6829  in  1874  to  8189  in  1880;  of  these  2500  had  never 
voted  before,  and  to  a  man  were  Radicals.  When  Mr.  Labou- 
chere  was  introduced  as  Liberal  candidate  he  at  once  decided 
to  make  common  cause  with  Mr.  Bradlaugh,  and  his  mani- 
festo to  the  electors,  published  on  March  27,  was  craftily 
worded  so  as  to  appeal  with  simple  directness  to  those 
modern  sons  of  St.  Crispin,  "the  communistic  cobblers  of 
Northampton."  It  ran  as  follows:  "Having  already  sat 
in  Parliament  as  a  Liberal  member  for  Middlesex,  it  is 
needless  for  me  to  say  that  I  am  an  opponent  of  the  Imperial- 
ism which,  under  the  leadership  of  the  Earl  of  Beaconsfield, 
has  become  the  policy  of  the  Conservative  Government. 
This  new-fangled  political  creed  consists  in  swagger  abroad 
and  inaction  at  home.  Its  results  are  that  we  have  made 
ourselves  the  patrons  of  one  of  the  vilest  governments  that 
ever  burdened  the  earth ;  that  we  have  joined  with  the  op- 
pressors against  the  oppressed;  that  we  have  acquired  a 
pestiferous  and  less  than  worthless  land  in  the  Mediterra- 
nean ;  that  we  have  annexed  the  territory  of  some  harmless 
Dutch  republicans  against  their  will ;  that  we  have  expended 
above  six  millions  in  catching  a  savage,  who  had  as  much 
right  to  his  freedom  as  we  have,  and  that  we  have  butchered 
Afghans  for  the  crime  of  defending  their  country  against 
an  unjust  invasion.  .  .  .  For  my  part,  I  am  anxious  to  see 
Parliament  again  controlling  the  executive,  and  a  majority 
of  members  returned  who  will  radically  revise  the  laws 
regarding  land,  so  as  to  encourage  its  tenure  by  the  many 
instead  of  its  absorption  by  the  few,  who  will  render  farmers 
independent  of  the  caprices  of  the  landlords,  who  will  eman- 


144  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1880- 

cipate  the  agricultural  labourers  by  securing  to  them  their 
natural  right  to  vote."  He  went  on  to  express  in  strong 
terms  his  desire  for  the  disestablishment  and  disendowment 
of  the  Church  of  England. I  In  a  speech  which  he  made  on 
the  same  day  as  the  publication  of  his  manifesto,  in  the 
Wesley  an  Chapel,  in  the  Wellingborough  Road,  he  said  that 
he  had  been  asked  a  little  while  ago  whether  he  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Church  of  England,  and  he  had  replied  that  he  had 
been  brought  up  in  the  Church  of  England,  and,  if  he  had 
to  register  his  religion,  he  should  register  it  as  a  member  of 
the  Church  of  England.  But,  if  he  had  been  asked  what  his 
religion  was,  he  should  have  said  the  question  was  one  be- 
tween his  God  and  his  conscience,  and  it  was  no  business  of 
any  one's  in  Northampton,  because  he  stood  upon  the  distinct 
issue  that,  whatever  the  religious  opinions  of  a  candidate 
might  be,  they  were  sending  him  to  Parliament  to  perform 
certain  political  duties,  and  if  his  political  views  were  in 
accordance  with  theirs,  religion  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.a 
The  borough  had  previously  returned  two  Tory  members, 
Mr.  Phipps,  a  local  brewer,  and  Mr.  Merewether,  a  lawyer. 
They  were  not  themselves  very  formidable  opponents  to  the 
Radical  joint  candidature.  The  clergy  and  the  press  urged 
the  theological  motive,  as  well  as  his  greatly  misunderstood 
views  on  Malthusianism  against  Bradlaugh.  On  the  Sunday 
before  the  election  the  Vicar  of  St.  Giles  intimated  that  "to 
those  noble  men  who  loved  Christ  more  than  party,  Jesus 
would  say,  'Well  done."'  But,  in  spite  of  nearly  2000  years 
of  Christianity,  heaven  has  not  yet  learned  to  bless  the 
weaker  cause,  and  on  the  election  day,  the  figures  stood — 
Labouchere  (L.),  4518,  Bradlaugh  (R.),  3827,  Phipps  (C.), 
3125,  Merewether  (C.),  2826.  When  the  news  of  the  poll  was 
brought  to  Mr.  Labouchere,  who  was  smoking  his  cigarette 
in  the  coffee  room  of  the  hotel  where  he  was  staying,  his  only 
comment  was  a  quiet  chuckle,  and  the  remark,  "  Oh,  they  've 
swallowed  Bradlaugh,  after  all,  have  they?" 

1  Northampton  Mercury,  March  27,  1880.  'Ibid. 


i88i]  LABOUCHERE  AND  BRADLAUGH  145 

Great  was  the  fury  in  the  Conservative  camp.  "The 
bellowing  blasphemer  of  Northampton,"  as  Mr.  Bradlaugh 
was  amiably  called  by  the  Sheffield  Telegraph,  had  to  meet 
the  full  blast  of  popular  prejudice,  which  was  exploited  to 
the  utmost  by  his  political  opponents. 

The  Tories  were  soon  to  have  more  than  popular  pre- 
judice to  exploit.  On  May  3,  Mr.  Eradlaugh,  before  taking 
his  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons,  handed  to  Sir  Thomas 
Erskine  May,  the  Clerk  of  the  House,  the  following 
statement : 

To 
THE  RIGHT  HONBLE.  THE  SPEAKER. 

I,  the  undersigned,  Charles  Bradlaugh,  beg  respectfully  to 
claim  to  be  allowed  to  affirm  as  a  person  for  the  time  being  by  law 
permitted  to  make  a  solemn  affirmation  or  declaration,  instead 
of  taking  an  oath. 

On  being  invited  by  the  Speaker  (Sir  Henry  Brand)  to 
make  a  statement  to  the  House  with  regard  to  his  claim,  he 
replied : 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  only  now  to  submit  that  the  Parliament- 
ary Oaths  Act,  1866,  gives  the  right  to  affirm  to  every  person  for 
the  time  being  permitted  to  make  affirmation.  I  am  such  a 
person;  and  under  the  Evidence  Amendment  Act,  1869,  and  the 
Evidence  Amendment  Act,  1870,  I  have  repeatedly  for  nine 
years  past  affirmed  in  the  highest  courts  of  jurisdiction  in  this 
realm.  I  am  ready  to  make  the  declaration  or  affirmation  of 
allegiance. 

It  might  have  been  thought  that  the  principle  of  Mr. 
Bradlaugh's  position  needed  only  to  be  stated  to  be  accepted 
by  men  of  honourable  feeling  and  average  intelligence. 
After  all,  as  Mr.  Labouchere,  in  course  of  conversation  on 
this  very  point,  once  remarked  to  me:  "a statement  is  either 
true  or  false,  and  expletives  cannot  affect  it."  The  legal 
precedents,  invoked,  although  they  did  not  actually  mention 


146  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1880- 

the  parliamentary  oath,  had  been  considered  sufficient  by 
the  last  Liberal  law  officers.  Sir  Henry  Brand,  however, 
had  "grave  doubts,"  and  desired  to  refer  the  claim  to  the 
House's  judgment.  Lord  Frederick  Cavendish,  on  behalf 
of  the  Treasury  Bench,  seconded  by  Sir  Stafford  Northcote, 
the  leader  of  the  Opposition,  moved  that  the  point  be  re- 
ferred to  a  Select  Committee.  Lord  Percy  and  Mr.  David 
Onslow  attempted  in  vain  to  adjourn  the  debate. 

On  May  10,  Lord  Richard  Grosvenor,  the  Government 
Whip,  announced  the  names  of  the  proposed  Committee: 
Mr.  Whitbread,  Sir  J.  Holker,  Mr.  John  Bright,  Lord  Henry 
Lennox,  Mr.  W.  H.  Massey,  Mr.  Staveley  Hill,  Sir  Henry 
Jackson,  Sir  Henry  James  (the  Attorney-General),  Mr. 
Fairer  Herschell  (the  Solicitor-General),  Sir  G.  Goldney, 
Mr.  Grantham,  Mr.  Pemberton,  Mr.  Watkin  Williams,  Mr. 
Spencer  Walpole,  Mr.  Hopwood,  Mr.  Beresford  Hope,  Major 
Nolan,  Mr.  Chaplin,  and  Mr.  Serjeant  Simon.  In  spite  of 
the  fact  that  the  actual  motion  was  not  to  come  on  till  the 
next  day,  Sir  Henry  Drummond  Wolff  endeavoured  at  once 
to  raise  a  debate  on  the  legitimacy  of  the  Committee,  and 
the  next  day  succeeded  in  doing  so.  The  debate  was 
characterised  by  "great  violence  and  recklessness,"  but  the 
Government  succeeded  in  getting  their  Committee  appointed 
by  a  majority  of  seventy-four.  The  report  of  the  Com- 
mittee was  presented  on  May  20.  Eight  members  were 
in  favour  of  Mr.  Bradlaugh's  right  to  affirm,  and  eight 
members  against:  Mr.  Spencer  Walpole,  the  Chairman, 
took  the  responsibility  of  giving  his  casting  vote  for  the 
Noes.  All  the  Noes  with  the  exception  of  Mr.  Hopwood 
were  Conservatives,  the  rest  of  the  Liberals  voting  on  the 
affirmative  side.  Bradlaugh  now  claimed  the  right  to  take 
the  oath,  as  the  right  to  affirm  was  denied  him. 

There  has  been  so  much  misunderstanding  of  Bradlaugh's 
position  on  this  point  that  it  may  be  well  to  explain  exactly 
what  it  was  that  he  did  claim.  In  a  statement  of  his  case 
subsequently  published  in  his  paper,  The  National  Reformer, 


i88i]  LABOUCHERE  AND  BRADLAUGH  147 

on  May  30,  1889,  Mr.  Bradlaugh  used  the  following  words: 
"My  duty  to  my  constituents  is  to  fulfil  the  mandate  they 
have  given  me,  and  if,  to  do  this,  I  have  to  submit  to  a  form 
less  solemn  to  me  than  the  affirmation  I  would  have  rever- 
ently made,  so  much  the  worse  for  those  who  force  me  to 
repeat  words  which  I  have  scores  of  times  declared  are  to 
me  sounds  conveying  no  clear  and  definite  meaning.  I  am 
sorry  for  the  earnest  believers  who  see  words  sacred  to  them 
used  as  a  meaningless  addendum  to  a  promise,  but  I  cannot 
permit  their  less  sincere  co-religionists  to  use  an  idle  form, 
in  order  to  prevent  me  from  doing  my  duty  to  those  who 
have  chosen  me  to  speak  for  them  in  Parliament.  /  shall, 
taking  the  oath,  regard  myself,  as  bound,  not  by  the  letter  of  its 
words,  but  by  the  spirit  which  the  affirmation  would  have  con- 
veyed had  I  been  permitted  to  use  it.  So  soon  as  I  am  able, 
I  shall  take  such  steps  as  may  be  consistent  with  parliament- 
ary business  to  put  an  end  to  the  present  doubtful  and 
unfortunate  state  of  the  law  and  practice  on  oaths  and 
affirmations." 

The  words  italicised  indicate  very  clearly  the  spirit  in 
which  Mr.  Bradlaugji  proposed  to  take  the  oath.  To  do  so, 
was,  as  he  conceived,  the  only  way,  since  the  adverse  decision 
of  the  Committee  on  his  claim  to  affirm,  by  which  he  could 
qualify  himself  for  the  performance  of  his  duty  to  his  con- 
stituents. It  was  in  no  sense  intended  as  an  insult  to  those 
to  whom  the  oath  had  a  distinct  and  positive  religious  value, 
or  as  a  defiance  of  the  dignity  or  orders  of  the  House.  This 
document  was  dated  May  30,  the  day  on  which  the  report 
of  the  Committee  was  issued,  and  on  the  following  day, 
Mr.  Bradlaugh  presented  himself  to  take  the  oath  and  his 
seat. 

Sir  Henry  Drummond  Wolff  at  once  rose  and  objected 
to  the  administration  of  the  oath,  and,  on  the  Speaker's 
allowing  his  objection,  proceeded  to  make  a  remarkable 
speech.  For  flippancy  of  tone  and  sheer  ineptitude  of 
argument,  not  to  speak  of  the  crass  and  brutal  quality  of 


148  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1880- 

the  prejudice  which  inspired  it,  this  deliverance  possesses 
an  unenviable  pre-eminence  among  the  many  absurdities 
uttered  by  honourable  members  during  the  Bradlaugh 
parliamentary  struggle.  Wolff's  argument  rested  on  two 
grounds,  both  palpably  false,  while  the  second  was  entirely 
irrelevant  to  the  point  at  issue.  He  maintained  that  Athe- 
ists who  had  made  affirmations  in  courts  of  law  (as  Mr. 
Bradlaugh  had  done)  thereby  admitted  that  an  oath  "would 
not  be  binding  on  their  conscience,"  and,  furthermore,  that 
Bradlaugh  had  stated,  in  his  "Impeachment  of  the  House 
of  Brunswick,"  that  "Parliament  has  the  undoubted  right 
to  withhold  the  crown  from  Albert  Edward,  Prince  of  Wales." 
Sir  Henry  "could  not  see  how  a  gentleman  professing  the 
views  set  forth  in  that  work  could  take  the  oath  of  alle- 
giance." He  went  on  to  say:  "What  we  have  now  before  us 
is  the  distinct  negation  of  anything  like  perpetual  morality 
or  conscience,  or  the  existence  of  God.  And,  as  I  believe  that 
a  person  holding  these  views  cannot  be  allowed  to  take  the 
oath  in  this  House,  I  beg  to  move  my  resolution."  Mr.  R.  N. 
Forster  seconded.  Mr.  Gladstone  at  once  rose  and,  while 
refraining  from  expressing  any  personal  opinion,  suggested 
reference  to  a  Select  Committee.  Sir  Henry  James  supported 
the  Prime  Minister's  amendment.  Mr.  Labouchere,  speak- 
ing as  the  colleague  of  the  honourable  member  in  the  re- 
presentation of  Northampton,  said  that  he  thought  it  right 
to  state  that  his  honourable  friend  was  selected  by  the 
majority  of  the  constituents  solely  on  account  of  his  political 
views.  They  did  not  occupy  themselves  with  his  religious 
convictions,  because  they  were  under  the  impression  that 
they  were  giving  him  political,  rather  than  theological, 
functions  to  fulfil  in  that  House.  A  proposal  had  been  made 
by  the  Prime  Minister  that  this  matter  should  be  referred 
to  a  Select  Committee.  It  certainly  did  appear  to  him 
(Mr.  Labouchere)  somewhat  strange  that  a  member  who 
had  been  duly  elected  should  be  told  that  he  could  not  take 
his  seat  because  he  was  forbidden  to  make  an  affirmation  on 


i88i]  LABOUCHERE  AND  BRADLAUGH  149 

account  of  his  not  being  a  Quaker  or  a  Moravian,  and  be- 
cause he  was  forbidden  from  taking  the  oath  on  account  of 
certain  speculative  religious  opinions,  which  he  had  pro- 
fessed. But  that  appeared  to  be  the  view  of  many  gentlemen 
on  the  other  side  of  the  House,  and  he  should  be  perfectly 
ready  to  discuss  that  view;  but,  as  the  Prime  Minister  had 
very  rightly  said,  the  matter  was  a  judicial  one,  and  it  would  be 
far  better,  in  his  humble  opinion,  that  it  should  be  referred 
to  a  Committee  of  the  House  to  look  at  it  in  its  judicial  aspect 
rather  than  that  there  should  be  an  acrimonious  theologi- 
cal discussion  in  that  House.  When,  however,  it  was  re- 
ferred to  a  Committee,  he  thought  that  he  had  a  right  to  ask, 
in  the  name  of  his  constituents,  that  that  Committee  should 
decide  it  as  soon  as  possible.  Should  the  Committee  decide 
that  the  honourable  gentleman  was  not  to  be  allowed  to  take 
the  oath,  it  would  then  become,  if  not  his  duty,  the  duty  of 
some  other  honourable  gentleman  to  bring  in  a  bill  to  enable 
his  colleague  to  make  an  affirmation  in  order  that  his  con- 
stituents might  enjoy  the  right  which  the  constitution  gave 
them  of  being  represented  by  two  members  in  that  House. 

Lord  Percy  drily  observed  that  he  was  sorry  for  the 
electors  of  Northampton  if  tney  were  deprived  of  the  serv- 
ices of  one  of  their  representatives,  because  the  honourable 
gentleman  was  recommended  to  them  by  his  honourable 
colleague,  whose  religious  opinions  were  well  known,  and, 
after  an  eloquent  speech  from  Mr.  Bright,  who  recommended 
"the  statesmanlike  and  judicious  course  which  has  been 
suggested  to  us  by  the  First  Minister  of  the  Crown,"  the 
debate  was  adjourned. 

On  the  resumption  of  the  debate  the  next  day,  the  wildest 
remarks  were  made  by  Mr.  Bradlaugh's  opponents.  Dr. 
Lyons  proposed  the  solution  that  "Northampton  should 
send  us  a  God-fearing  if  not  a  God-loving  man."  Mr. 
Warton  argued  that  "the  man  who  does  not  fear  God  cannot 
honour  the  King,"  and  Mr.  Callan  scoffed  at  Mr.  Bright's 
tribute  of  respect  to  Mr.  Bradlaugh's  sense  of  honour  and 


150  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1880- 

conscience,  "language,"  he  said,  "that  should  not  be  used 
with  reference  to  an  infidel  blasphemer."  After  the  din 
caused  by  this  ex  parte  criticism  had  subsided,  the  still  small 
voice  of  Mr.  Labouchere  was  heard  mildly  asking  whether 
the  honourable  member  was  in  order  in  referring  to  his 
colleague  as  an  infidel  blasphemer,  and  the  Speaker  having 
ruled  the  phrase  out  of  order,  Mr.  Callan  withdrew  it.  He 
was,  however,  an  ardent  polemist,  and  added  that  he  was 
sure  that  Mr.  Labouchere,  in  spite  of  his  support  of  Mr. 
Bradlaugh,  "would  prefer  in  this  House  his  old  acquaintance 
Lambri  Pasha  to  the  gentleman  who  was  the  subject  of  the 
debate."  And  so  the  foolish  wrangle  went  on,  recalling 
the  historian's  account  of  the  (Ecumenical  Council.  It  is 
true  that  the  amateur  theologians  of  Westminster  stopped 
short  of  pulling  each  other's  beards.  Their  zeal  had  not 
quite  the  professional  note  of  that  of  the  Fathers  at  Ephesus. 

After  two  days  of  this  sort  of  thing,  Sir  Henry  Drummond 
Wolff's  motion  was  rejected  by  289  votes  to  219,  and  a  second 
Select  Committee  of  twenty-three  was  appointed.  The 
members  were:  the  Attorney-General,  the  Solicitor-General, 
Messrs.  Bright,  Chaplin,  Childers,  Sir  Richard  Cross,  Mr. 
Gibson,  Sir  Gabriel  Goldney,  Mr.  Grantham,  Mr.  Staveley 
Hill,  Sir  John  Holker,  Mr.  Beresford  Hope,  Mr.  Hopwood, 
Sir  Henry  Jackson,  Lord  Henry  Lennox,  Mr.  Massey,  Major 
Nolan,  Messrs.  Pemberton,  Simon,  Trevelyan,  Walpole, 
Whitbread,  and  Watkin  Williams. 

The  Committee  reported  that  Bradlaugh  by  simply 
stating  (though  in  answer  to  official  question)  that  he  had 
repeatedly  affirmed  under  certain  Acts  in  courts  of  law,  had 
brought  it  to  the  notice  of  the  House  that  he  was  a  person 
as  to  whom  judges  had  satisfied  themselves  that  an  oath  was 
not  binding  on  his  conscience ;  that,  under  the  circumstances, 
an  oath  taken  by  him  would  not  be  an  oath  within  the  true 
meaning  of  the  statutes ;  and  that  the  House  therefore  could, 
and  ought,  to  prevent  him  from  going  through  the  form. 
The  Committee  further  suggested  that  he  should  be  allowed 


i88i]  LABOUCHERE  AND  BRADLAUGH  151 

to  affirm  with  a  view  to  his  right  to  do  so  being  tested  by 
legal  action,  pointing  to  the  nearly  equal  balance  of  votes 
in  the  former  Committee  as  a  reason  for  desiring  a  decisive 
legal  solution. 

On  June  21,  Mr.  Labouchere  moved  "that  Mr.  Brad- 
laugh,  member  for  the  borough  of  Northampton,  be  ad- 
mitted to  make  an  affirmation  or  declaration  instead  of  the 
oath  required  by  law."  This  speech  was  one  of  the  best  he 
ever  made  in  the  House.  It  was  an  admirable  piece  of 
argument  and  an  excellent  piece  of  literature,  solidly  reasoned 
and  witty;  "it  is  contrary  to,  it  is  repugnant  to,  the  feelings 
of  all  men  of  tolerant  minds  that  any  gentleman  should  be 
hindered  from  performing  civil  functions  in  this  world  on 
account  of  speculative  opinions  about  another" — was  a 
terse  summing  up  of  the  situation  worthy  of  Gibbon.  His 
main  argument  was  that  the  Parliamentary  Oaths  Act  of 
1866  gave  to  all  persons,  legally  entitled  to  affirm  in  the  law 
courts,  the  right  to  affirm  in  Parliament.  He  further  pointed 
out  that  the  refusal  to  allow  Bradlaugh  to  affirm  would  be 
to  turn  him  into  a  martyr.  Mr.  Bright  again  made  a  fine 
speech  in  which  he  said,  amid  ironical  cheers  from  the  Oppo- 
sition, that  he  pretended  to  no  conscience  and  honour  supe- 
rior to  the  conscience  of  Mr.  Bradlaugh.  Mr.  Gladstone 
also  spoke  cogently  in  favour  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  motion. 
It  was,  however,  lost  by  a  majority  of  45,  of  whom  5  were 
English  Liberals  and  31  Irish  Home  Rulers. 

On  June  23,  Mr.  Bradlaugh  again  presented  himself 
at  the  table  of  the  House.  The  Speaker  called  on  him  to 
withdraw,  in  accordance  with  the  vote  of  the  night  before. 
Mr.  Labouchere  then  moved  that  "Mr.  Bradlaugh  be  now 
heard  at  the  Bar  of  the  House,"  following  which  motion  Mr. 
Bradlaugh  made  an  eloquent  and  dignified  defence  of  his 
position.  A  confused  debate  followed,  and  Mr.  Labouchere 
moved  that  "Yesterday's  decision  be  rescinded,"  with- 
drawing his  motion,  however,  on  an  appeal  from  Mr.  Glad- 
stone. The  Speaker  then  recalled  Bradlaugh  to  the  table, 


152  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1880- 

and  informed  him  that  the  House  had  nothing  to  say  to  him 
beyond  once  more  calling  upon  him  to  withdraw.  Bradlaugh 
replied:  "I  beg  respectfully  to  insist  on  my  right  as  a  duly 
elected  member  for  Northampton.  I  ask  you  to  have  the 
oath  administered  to  me  in  order  that  I  may  take  my  seat, 
and  I  respectfully  refuse  to  withdraw."  After  a  second 
admonition  from  the  Speaker,  to  which  Bradlaugh  replied, 
"With  respect  I  do  refuse  to  obey  the  orders  of  the  House, 
which  are  against  the  law,"  the  House  was  appealed  to  "to 
give  authority  to  the  Chair  to  compel  execution  of  its  orders." 
Mr.  Gladstone,  although  called  upon,  did  not  rise.  He 
appeared  to  be  absorbed  in  deep  thought,  and,  with  his 
gaze  fixed  on  a  vague  distance,  just  above  the  heads  of  the 
belligerent  theologians,  he  meditatively  twirled  his  thumbs. 
Northcote  hesitatingly  moved,  "though  I  am  not  quite  sure 
what  the  terms  of  the  motion  should  be,  that  Mr.  Speaker 
do  take  the  necessary  steps  for  requiring  and  enforcing  the* 
withdrawal  of  the  honourable  member  for  Northampton." 
The  Speaker  explained  that  the  motion  should  simply  be 
"that  the  honourable  member  do  now  withdraw."  On  a 
division  being  taken,  326  voted  in  favour  of  the  motion 
and  only  38  against.  On  the  Speaker  renewing  his  order, 
Mr.  Bradlaugh  answered:  "With  submission  to  you,  Sir, 
the  order  of  the  House  is  against  the  law,  and  I  respectfully 
refuse  to  obey  it."  The  Sergeant-at-Arms  was  now  called, 
and  touching  him  on  the  shoulder,  requested  him  to  with- 
draw. Mr.  Bradlaugh  said:  "I  will  submit  to  the  Sergeant- 
at-Arms  removing  me  below  the  Bar,  but  I  shall  immediately 
return  to  the  table,"  and  did  so,  saying  as  he  returned  toward 
the  table,  "I  claim  my  right  as  a  member  of  this  House." 
This  little  ceremony  was  repeated  twice,  the  House  being  in 
an  uproar.  High  above  the  din,  Mr.  Bradlaugh's  voice 
could  be  heard  shouting:  "I  claim  my  right  as  a  member  of 
this  House.  I  admit  the  right  of  the  House  to  imprison 
me,  but  I  admit  no  right  on  the  part  of  the  House  to  exclude 
me,  and  I  refuse  to  be  excluded."  He  was  again  led  to 


i88i]  LABOUCHERE  AND  BRADLAUGH  153 

the  Bar  by  the  Sergeant-at-Arms   to  await  the  House's 
action. 

Mr.  Bradlaugh  had,  no  doubt  not  unintentionally,  indi- 
cated to  his  enemies  the  only  line  they  could  take.  It  was 
his  tactic,  and  a  wise  one,  to  force  the  House  into  the  extreme 
measure  of  physical  force.  To  do  so  was  a  fair  retort  from 
a  Rationalist  to  his  opponents.  Northcote,  complaining 
again  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  inaction,  proceeded  to  move  that 
"Mr.  Bradlaugh,  having  defied  the  authority  of  the  House, 
be  taken  into  the  custody  of  the  Sergeant-at-Arms."  Mr. 
Labouchere  at  once  rose  and  said  that  he  would  not  oppose 
the  resolution,  although  he  thought  it  a  somewhat  strange 
thing  that  a  citizen  of  this  country  should  be  sent  to  prison 
for  doing  what  eminent  legal  gentlemen  on  his  side  and  an 
eminent  legal  gentleman  on  the  other  side  of  the  House  said 
he  had  a  perfect  right  to  do.  He  was  interrupted  by  cries 
of  "No,  No!"  He  continued  that  he  did  not  know  whether 
honourable  members  opposite  meant  to  say  that  the  honour- 
able and  learned  gentleman,  the  late  Attorney-General,  was 
not  an  eminent  legal  authority  on  such  a  point.  That  was 
the  view  taken  by  that  honourable  and  learned  gentleman. 
It  seemed  a  somewhat  hard  thing  that  any  one  should  be  put 
into  prison  for  doing  what  a  general  consensus  of  legal  opin- 
ion in  that  House  held  to  be  his  duty  and  his  right.  But, 
as  the  Prime  Minister  had  stated,  it  was  useless  to  oppose 
the  motion,  because  Mr.  Bradlaugh  had  come  into  conflict 
with  a  resolution  of  the  House,  whether  that  resolution  were 
right  or  wrong.  He,  regretting  as  he  did  the  necessity  that 
had  been  forced  upon  the  House,  did  not  think  he  should 
be  serving  any  good  purpose  in  opposing  the  resolution,  or 
in  asking  the  House  to  go  into  a  vote  on  this  question.  He 
believed  himself  that  the  sending  of  Mr.  Bradlaugh  into 
custody  would  be  the  first  step  towards  his  becoming  a 
recognised  member  of  the  House.  It  is  interesting  to  note 
that  Mr.  Parnell  also  spoke  in  favour  of  Mr.  Bradlaugh,  and 
said  that,  if  Irish  members  voted  for  his  imprisonment, 


154  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1880- 

they  would  be  going  contrary  to  the  feeling  of  their  country. 
On  a  division  being  taken  there  were  274  Ayes  to  7  Noes, 
and  Mr.  Bradlaugh  was  removed  in  the  custody  of  the 
Sergeant-at-Arms  to  the  Clock  Tower. 

The  imprisonment  was  rather  an  insult  than  an  injury. 
The  prisoner  received  his  friends  freely  and  openly,  and 
proceeded  to  the  business  of  fighting  his  battle  in  the  country 
from  his  "cell."  A  cry  of  indignation,  which  must  have 
greatly  surprised  the  Tories,  went  up  all  over  England,  and, 
on  the  next  day,  Northcote,  at  the  urgent  advice,  it  is  said, 
of  Lord  Beaconsfield,  moved  for  Bradlaugh's  immediate 
and  unconditional  release.  On  Sir  Stafford  making  his 
motion,  Mr.  Labouchere  pointed  out  to  the  House,  "in  order 
that  there  may  be  no  misconception  in  the  matter,"  that 
Mr.  Bradlaugh  would  immediately  on  his  release  "return 
to  the  House  and  do  what  the  Prime  Minister,  the  colleagues 
of  the  Prime  Minister,  the  present  Attorney-General  and 
the  late  Attorney-General,  say  he  has  an  absolute  legal  right 
to  do."  The  motion  was  nevertheless  agreed  to,  and  Mr. 
Bradlaugh  was  released. 

The  next  day,  June  25,  Mr.  Labouchere  gave  notice 
that  he  should  move  on  the  following  Tuesday  that  the 
resolution  of  the  House,  which  had  resulted  in  Mr.  Brad- 
laugh's  imprisonment,  should  be  read  and  rescinded.  He 
also  asked  for  special  facilities  from  the  Government  on 
that  day  for  bringing  the  matter  before  the  House.  Mr. 
Gladstone,  whilst  reserving  his  answer  as  to  the  particular 
form  of  proceeding,  agreed  that  "it  was  certainly  requisite 
and  necessary  that  the  subject  of  Mr.  Bradlaugh's  right 
should  be  considered,"  and  promised  facilities  for  the  day 
mentioned  by  Mr.  Labouchere.  On  the  Monday,  however, 
Mr.  Gladstone  himself  informed  the  House  that  the  Govern- 
ment had  framed  the  following  resolution,  which  they  in- 
tended to  submit :  "  That  every  person  returned  as  a  member 
of  this  House,  who  may  claim  to  be  a  person  for  the  time 
being  by  law  permitted  to  make  a  solemn  affirmation  or 


i88i]          LABOUCHERE  AND  BRADLAUGH  155 

declaration  instead  of  taking  an  oath,  shall,  henceforth 
(notwithstanding  so  much  of  the  resolution  adopted  by  this 
House  on  the  22d  of  June  last,  as  relates  to  affirmation), 
be  permitted  without  question  to  make  and  subscribe  a 
solemn  affirmation  in  the  form  prescribed  by  the  Parliament- 
ary Oaths  Act,  1866,  as  altered  by  the  Promissory  Oaths 
Act,  1868,  subject  to  any  liability  by  Statute;  and,  secondly, 
that  this  resolution  be  a  standing  Order  of  this  House." 
The  Prime  Minister  then  expressed  the  hope  that,  as  the 
question  would  be  raised  in  what  the  Government  considered 
the  most  convenient  manner,  Mr.  Labouchere  would  not 
consider  it  necessary  to  proceed  with  any  motion  on  the 
following  day.  Mr.  Labouchere  withdrew  his  resolution 
"after  the  very  satisfactory  Notice,  which  has  just  been 
given  by  the  Prime  Minister." 

The  next  day,  when  Mr.  Gladstone  made  his  motion, 
Sir  John  Gorst  opposed  it,  on  the  technical  ground  that  it 
was  a  breach  of  the  Rule  of  the  House,  which  laid  down  that, 
if  a  question  had  been  considered  by  the  House  and  a  definite 
judgment  pronounced,  the  same,  or  what  was  substantially 
the  same,  question  could  not  be  put  again  to  the  House  dur- 
ing the  same  session.  This  contention  was,  however,  over- 
ruled by  the  Speaker,  and,  on  a  division  being  taken,  the 
Prime  Minister's  resolution  was  accepted  by  a  majority 
of  54,  the  Ayes  numbering  303  and  the  Noes  249.  Brad- 
laugh  was  now  free  to  affirm  at  his  own  legal  risk,  and  he 
did  so  the  next  day,  thus  bringing  to  a  conclusion  the  first 
movement  of  this  ironic  symphony. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Labouchere's  great 
speech  of  June  21  contributed  powerfully  to  this  result. 
Apart  from  the  speeches  of  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Mr.  Bright, 
and  indeed  Mr.  Bradlaugh's  own  fine  speech  at  the  Bar  of 
the  House  on  June  23,  it  was  the  only  attempt  made  to 
present  the  constitutional  and  legal  aspects  of  Bradlaugh's 
case  in  their  true  light.  The  subject  was  one  that  appealed 
very  strongly  to  Mr.  Labouchere.  In  personal  agreement 


156  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1880- 

with  the  views  which  it  was  sought  to  penalise  in  the  person 
of  Mr.  Bradlaugh  (although  it  would  have  been  alien  to  his 
temperament  to  have  enrolled  himself  as  a  partisan  of  those 
views),  his  attack  on  Mr.  Bradlaugh's  enemies  acquired 
weight  and  energy  from  the  love  of  individual  liberty  that 
was  at  the  bottom  of  his  character,  and  his  detestation,  on 
that,  as  on  every  other  occasion  of  his  public  life,  of  oppres- 
sion and  prejudice. 

The  prejudice  aroused  by  Bradlaugh's  entrance  into  the 
House  of  Commons  was  slow  to  disperse.  Numerous  peti- 
tions for  his  exclusion  from  Parliament  were  signed,  in  some 
cases,  en  bloc,  by  Sunday-school  children.  The  varieties 
of  English  Protestantism  were  all  zealous  in  the  good  cause, 
and  Cardinal  Manning,  who  wrote  a  violent  article  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century  on  the  subject,  succeeded  in  presenting 
a  monster  petition  from  English  and  exiled  Irish  Roman 
Catholics.  There  were,  however,  some  notable  exceptions 
among  those  who  represented  the  religious  principle.  Several 
clergymen  of  the  Church  of  England  and  not  a  few  Non- 
conformist ministers  wrote  to  the  papers  on  his  behalf. 
Newman  refused  to  sign  the  petition,  on  constitutional 
grounds,  and  the  "Home  Government  Association  of  Glas- 
gow" sent  tp  Bradlaugh  a  resolution  stating  "that  this 
meeting  of  Irish  Roman  Catholics  .  .  .  most  emphatically 
condemns  the  spirit  of  domination  and  intolerance  arrayed 
against  you,  and  views  with  astonishment  and  indignation 
the  cowardly  acquiescence  and,  in  a  few  instances,  active 
support,  on  the  part  of  a  large  majority  of  the  Irish  Home 
Rule  members  to  the  policy  of  oppression  exercised  against 
you."  Such  voices  were,  however,  few  and  far  between; 
in  the  House  itself  the  Opposition  could  not  resist  the  tempta- 
.  tion  of  such  a  weapon  against  the  Government.  It  was  good 
policy,  as  Lord  Henry  Lennox  said,  in  a  moment  of  expan- 
sion, "to  put  that  damned  Bradlaugh  on  them."  Mr. 
Labouchere  held  an  unswerving  course  in  support  of  his 
colleague.  Temperamentally,  as  has  been  said,  he  did  not 


i88i]  LABOUCHERE  AND  BRADLAUGH  157 

sympathise  with  Mr.  Bradlaugh's  attitude.  He  did  not 
share  Mr.  Bradlaugh's  view  of  the  importance  of  transcen- 
dental opinions  of  any  shade,  and  his  wider  experience  of 
life  and  human  nature  led  him  to  gauge  more  truly  perhaps, 
certainly  very  differently,  the  value  in  the  social  scheme  of 
other  people's  religious  belief.  He  would  never  himself 
have  raised  the  question  raised  by  Mr.  Bradlaugh,  but  he 
was  wise  enough  to  realise  that,  once  it  was  raised,  there 
was  only  one  way  of  settling  it.  In  the  course  of  his  long 
life,  he  championed  many  a  victim  of  oppression  and  preju- 
dice, but  it  may  be  doubted  whether  his  championship  ever 
showed  to  greater  advantage,  was  ever  more  firmly  based 
on  those  wide  views  of  justice  which  underlie  genuine  po- 
litical sagacity,  and  distinguish  the  true  statesman  from  the 
mere  politician,  than  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Bradlaugh's  par- 
liamentary struggle. 

The  venue  of  that  struggle  was  shortly  transferred  to 
the  law  courts.  Bradlaugh  had  affirmed  and  taken  his 
seat  at  his  own  legal  risk.  During  the  five  months  in  which 
Parliament  sat  between  July,  1880,  and  March,  1881,  he  was 
one  of  the  most  assiduous  and  energetic  members  of  the 
House.  On  March  7,  the  action  of  one  Clarke  v.  Brad- 
laugh  came  on  the  Court  of  Queen's  Bench  before  Mr. 
Justice  Matthew.  On  the  nth  the  judge  delivered  his 
judgment,  which  was  against  the  defendant.  He  said  that 
the  Parliamentary  Oaths  Act,  cited  in  his  favour  by  Brad- 
laugh,  only  permitted  affirmation  to  persons  holding  re- 
ligious beliefs.  On  judgment  being  delivered  against  him, 
Bradlaugh  applied  for  a  stay  of  execution  of  costs,  with 
view  to  an  appeal,  which  was  granted,  the  judge  consenting 
to  stay  his  verdict  for  the  opinion  of  the  Court  of  Appeal  'to 
be  taken.  The  appeal  was  heard  on  March  30  by  Lord 
Justices  Bramwell,  Lush,  and  Baggallay,  but  their  decision 
was  again  adverse  to  the  defendant.  The  point  taken  was 
not,  as  Mr.  Labouchere  had  argued  before  the  House,  the 
actual  grammatical  meaning  of  the  wording  of  the  Act,  but 


158  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1880- 

the  intention  of  the  framers  of  the  Act.  Their  Lordships 
held  that  it  had  only  been  intended  to  emancipate  persons 
possessed  of  positive  religious  beliefs  rendering  the  taking 
of  an  oath  repugnant  to  their  consciences.  This  rendered 
the  second  seat  for  Northampton  vacant.  On  April  i  Mr. 
Labouchere,  in  the  course  of  moving  for  a  new  writ  for  the 
borough  of  Northampton,  said  that  a  decision  had  now 
been  given  against  Bradlaugh  by  three  judges,  and,  in  all 
probability,  the  House  of  Lords  would  decide  against  him. 
He  was  authorised  by  Mr.  Bradlaugh  to  say  that  he  fully 
accepted  the  law  as  laid  down  by  the  Court  of  Appeal,  and 
that  it  was  not  fair  that  Northampton  should  have  one 
member  only — the  election  might  be  got  over  by  the  Easter 
holidays,  and  honourable  and  right  honourable  gentlemen 
would  have  an  opportunity  of  considering  what  course  they 
would  take  should  Mr.  Bradlaugh  be  re-elected.  The  writ 
was  issued,  and  Mr.  Bradlaugh  was,  as  Mr.  Labouchere 
had  predicted,  re-elected  on  April  9.  Mr.  Labouchere 
made  a  speech  at  Northampton,  before  the  election,  in 
defence  of  his  colleague,  the  interest  of  which  was  wider 
than  that  of  the  Bradlaugh  controversy  on  account  of  one 
statement  in  it.  He  described  his  leave-taking  of  Mr. 
Gladstone,  on  his  departure  from  London,  in  these  words: 
"And,  men  of  Northampton,  that  grand  old  man  said  to  me, 
as  he  patted  me  on  the  shoulder,  '  Henry  my  boy,  bring  him 
back,  bring  him  back!"  I  think  Mr.  Labouchere's  auto- 
biographical Muse  used  a  poetic  license  here.  It  is  certainly 
difficult  to  imagine  Mr.  Gladstone  patting  the  member  for 
Northampton  on  the  back,  and  calling  him  "Henry,  my 
boy."  The  success  of  this  allusion  to  the  Prime  Minister, 
however,  was  enormous,  and  the  name  stuck.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone was  the  "Grand  Old  Man"  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

As  every  one  knows,  Bradlaugh  again  was  not  allowed  to 
take  his  seat.  That  his  attitude  caused  embarrassment  to 
the  Liberal  party  cannot  be  denied.  At  the  end  of  June,  he 
wrote  to  Mr.  Labouchere  on  the  subject  of  forcing  another 


x88i]  LABOUCHERE  AND  BRADLAUGH  159 

contest  in  the  House,  and  Mr.  Labouchere  forwarded  his 
letter  to  Mr.  Chamberlain  with  the  following  comments : 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  July  2,  1881. 

DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Please  look  at  enclosed  letter.  If 
you  think  it  of  any  use,  show  it  to  Mr.  Gladstone.  I  send  it  to 
you  in  order  that  you  may  see  what  are,  I  take  it,  the  genuine 
intentions  of  Bradlaugh.  I  had  written  to  him  to  suggest  that 
he  should  go  up  to  the  table  and  take  the  oath  at  the  end  of  the 
Session,  and  I  offered  if  he  liked  to  do  so  on  the  last  day  of  the 
Session  to  talk  on  until  the  Black  Rod  appeared,  or,  if  he  preferred 
to  do  so  before,  I  said  that  Government  always  had  a  majority 
during  the  last  week  or  two,  and  that,  probably,  if  a  division 
were  taken  upon  expulsion,  he  would  win  it. 

Yesterday  I  received  a  letter  from  the  Executive  Committee 
of  the  Liberal  and  Radical  Caucus  at  Northampton,  telling  me 
that  Bradlaugh  had  sent  to  call  a  public  meeting  next  Wednesday, 
and  asking  me  to  come  down  to  meet  the  Committee  on  that  day 
to  advise  with  them  what  to  do,  as  Bradlaugh  has  asked  for  a 
resolution  to  be  passed,  in  the  nature  of  a  mandate  ordering  him 
to  take  his  seat.  I  have  written  urging  delay,  but,  of  course,  in 
this  matter  I  have  to  carry  out  the  wishes  of  the  constituency, 
as  the  question  regards  them. 

Whilst  Bradlaugh  exaggerates  his  strength,  his  opponents 
underestimate  it.  He  can  bring  together  a  mob,  with  a  vast 
number  of  fanatics  in  it,  ready  for  anything,  and  he  contends  that 
he  is  illegally  hindered  from  taking  his  seat,  and  therefore  may 
oppose  physical  force  to  physical  force. 

From  what  I  gather,  from  many  Members  of  Parliament, 
they  are  very  anxious  that  the  matter  should  be  settled  this 
Session,  because  they  think  that  its  being  kept  open  will  do  the 
Party  great  harm. 

Why  cannot  the  Bill1  be  brought  in  after  the  Land  Bill?  It 
has  but  one  clause,  and  if  our  side  speak  very  briefly,  the  Con- 
servatives cannot  go  on  talking  for  ever  on  so  simple  a  matter. 
Moreover,  there  are  a  good  many  Conservatives  who  have  told 
me  that  they  are  not  against  the  Bill. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

1  The  Oaths  Bill. 


160  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1880- 

Mr.  Gladstone  discouraged  Bradlaugh  from  resorting 
to  any  more  militant  methods  just  then,  and  intimated  that 
it  would  be  useless  to  bring  in  the  Oaths  Bill,  as  they  pro- 
posed to  close  the  session  early  in  August,  and  they  could 
not  hope  to  carry  any  strongly  controversial  measure  after 
the  Land  Bill. 

This  book  is  not  a  life  of  Bradlaugh,  and  it  is  enough  to 
have  noted  here  the  first  phase  of  the  ignoble  struggle.  As 
is  well  known,  Bradlaugh  returned  to  the  House,  and  fol- 
lowing Mr.  Labouchere's  suggestion,  administered  the  oath 
to  himself.  A  sordid  fight  ensued  on  the  attempt  to  remove 
him  forcibly,  in  which  no  merely  formal  violence  was  offered. 
His  clothes  were  torn  off  his  back  and,  although  a  man  of 
unusual  physical  strength,  he  fainted  in  the  melee.  Brad- 
laugh,  in  that  Parliament,  was  never  allowed  to  discharge 
his  duty  as  a  member.  Once  more  re-elected  by  the  con- 
stituency in  the  General  Election  of  1885,  the  Speaker 
would  suffer  no  intervention,  and  he  took  the  oath  and  his 
seat,  and  in  1888,  in  spite  of  a  Conservative  majority,  secured 
the  passing  of  an  Affirmation  Bill.  Finally,  in  1891,  when 
Mr.  Bradlaugh  was  lying  on  his  death-bed,  after  a  brief 
parliamentary  career  that  had  won  for  him  the  respect  of 
all  parties,  the  resolution  of  January  22,  1881,  that  had  been 
passed  amid  "such  estatic  transports,"  was  expunged  from 
the  records  of  the  House.  I  cannot  refrain  from  quoting 
the  fine  tribute  paid  to  his  memory  and  excellent  summing 
up  of  the  case  as  bearing  on  the  real  crux  of  the  situation, 
made  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  a  few  days  later,  in  the  course 
of  introducing  his  Religious  Disabilities  Removal  Bill  on 
February  4: 

A  distinguished  man  and  an  admirable  member  of  this  House 
was  laid  yesterday  in  his  mother  earth.  He  was  the  subject  of 
a  long  controversy  in  this  House,  the  beginning  of  which  we 
recollect  and  the  ending  of  which  we  recollect.  We  remember 
with  what  zeal  it  was  prosecuted ;  we  remember  how  summarily 


i88i]  LABOUCHERE  AND  BRADLAUGH  161 

it  was  dropped;  we  remember  also  what  reparation  has  been 
done  within  the  last  few  days  to  the  distinguished  man  who  was 
the  immediate  object  of  that  controversy.  But  does  anybody 
who  hears  me  believe  that  the  controversy  so  prosecuted  and  so 
abandoned  was  beneficial  to  the  Christian  Religion? 

Throughout  that  controversy,  his  fellow-member  for 
Northampton  was  his  loyal  colleague  both  in  the  country 
and  the  House.  In  season  and  out  of  season  Mr.  Labou- 
chere  spoke,  moved,  and  agitated  until  the  victory,  to  which 
his  advocacy  was  so  important  a  contribution,  was  won, 
and,  after  Bradlaugh's  death  in  1891,  he  published  the 
following  paragraphs  in  the  pages  of  Truth,  bearing  witness 
to  the  nobility  of  Bradlaugh's  character: 

Mr.  Bradlaugh  was  a  man  of  herculean  physical  strength,  but 
of  great  nervous  susceptibility.  I  believe  that  he  never  entirely 
recovered  from  the  rough  usage  which  he  met  with  when  he 
sought  to  force  his  way  into  the  House  of  Commons.  Last  year 
he  had  a  serious  illness.  He  recovered,  but  he  came  out  of  it  a 
broken  man.  He  would  not,  however,  admit  this,  and  he  strug- 
gled on  in  the  House  of  Commons,  at  public  meetings,  and  at  his 
desk,  with  the  sad  result  that  we  all  know. 

Never  was  a  man  less  understood.  I  never  knew  any  one  v,  ith 
a  stronger  sense  of  public  decorum  or  with  a  deeper  respect  for 
law.  When  he  asked  leave  to  affirm  in  the  House  of  Commons 
it  was  said  by  some  that  he  was  seeking  notoriety;  by  others, 
that  he  wished  to  defy  the  law.  What  led  to  it  was  this:  I  was 
sitting  by  his  side  when  the  Parliament  of  1881  met,  and  he 
said  to  me,  "  I  shall  ask  to  be  allowed  to  affirm,  as  with  my  views 
this  would  be  more  decorous  than  for  me  to  take  the  oath."  I 
replied,  "Are  you  sure  that  you  legally  can  affirm?"  "Yes,"  he 
answered;  "I  have  looked  closely  into  the  matter  and  I  am 
satisfied  of  my  legal  right."  His  attempt  to  affirm  was,  there- 
fore, solely  due  to  a  desire  to  respect  the  feelings  of  others,  and 
to  the  conviction  that  the  law  allowed  him  to  do  so. 

Mr.  Bradlaugh  was  my  colleague  for  ten  years.  During 
all  these  years  our  relations,  political  and  personal,  were  always 
of  the  most  cordial  character.  He  was  in  private  life  a  thoroughly 


162  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1880- 

true  and  amiable  man,  whilst  in  public  life  he  was  ever  ready  to 
sacrifice  popularity  to  his  convictions  of  what  was  right.  He  was, 
as  is  known,  an  atheist,  but  his  standard  of  duty  was  a  very  high 
one,  and  he  lived  up  to  it.  His  life  was  an  example  to  Christians, 
for  he  abounded  in  every  Christian  virtue.  This  the  House  of 
Commons  came  at  last  to  recognise.  I  do  not  think  that  there 
is  a  single  member  more  popular  or  more  respected  than  he  was 
on  both  sides.  Often  and  often  Conservatives  have,  in  a  friendly 
way,  said  to  me:  "What  a  much  better  man  your  colleague  is 
than  you  are!"  And  I  heartily  agreed  with  them. 

Regarding  money,  he  was  more  than  disinterested.  So  that 
he  had  enough  to  pay  for  his  food,  his  clothes,  and  for  his  modest 
lodging  in  St.  John's  Wood,  he  never  seemed  to  trouble  himself 
as  to  ways  and  means.  In  one  part  of  his  life  he  had  been  led 
into  some  sort  of  commercial  enterprise  which  did  not  succeed, 
and  the  failure  resulted  in  his  owing  a  considerable  sum.  He 
called  his  creditors  together,  told  them  that  he  had  nothing,  but 
if  they  would  agree  to  wait  he  would  pay  them  twenty  shillings 
in  the  pound.  They  trusted  him.  He  went  to  America,  made 
the  money  by  lecturing;  returned,  called  them  together,  and 
fulfilled  his  promise.  His  lodgings  in  St.  John's  Wood  were  over 
a  music  shop.  They  consisted  of  one  or  two  bedrooms  and  of  a 
large  room,  with  deal  shelves  round  it  for  his  books,  an  old  bureau 
where  he  wrote,  and  a  few  chairs  and  tables.  He  had  a  great 
affection  for  his  books,  and  the  only  time  I  ever  saw  him  dis- 
quieted about  money  matters  was  when  he  feared  that  he  might 
have  to  give  them  up,  owing  to  some  bankruptcy  proceedings 
that  were  threatened,  in  consequence  of  one  of  his  numerous 
actions  on  the  oath  question. 

In  an  article,  published  in  the  Northampton  Echo  just 
after  the  death  of  Mr.  Labouchere,  that  able  writer,  Mr. 
C.  A.  McCurdy,  comments  thus  on  the  first  Radical  members 
for  Northampton: 

What  a  strangely  assorted  pair  Northampton's  two  members 
were  in  those  days !  Bradlaugh,  a  giant  in  stature  as  in  intellect, 
Boanergian  in  his  oratory,  tremendous  in  the  strength  of  it, 
sweeping  away  opposition  by  the  force  of  its  torrent — Labou- 


i88i]  LABOUCHERE  AND  BRADLAUGH  163 

chere,  with  his  slight  figure,  his  quiet,  sardonic  manner,  wielding 
a  rapier  which  was  sometimes  even  more  deadly  than  the  battle- 
axe  and  broadsword  of  his  colleague.  His  aristocratic  connec- 
tions and  his  wealth  accentuated  the  clear  and  strong  outline  of 
his  Radicalism.  His  disregard  of  convention,  his  simplicity,  his 
courage,  his  irrepressible  gaiety  and  wit,  the  audacity  of  his 
envenomed  personal  assaults,  the  passionless  quality  of  it  all, 
the  cynic's  pose — all  this,  combined  with  his  encyclopaedic 
knowledge  and  the  sureness  of  his  aim  in  controversy,  made  him 
the  idol  of  Northampton  Radicals.  How  they  laughed  at  his 
solemn  assumption  of  moderation  and  orthodoxy!  But  how 
sure  they  were  of  his  earnestness  and  conviction!  And  how 
proud  of  his  easy  triumphs  in  the  battles  of  the  wits,  of  his  courage 
and  resource  in  the  conflicts  of  Parliament  and  the  political  fame 
which  he,  working  loyally  with  Bradlaugh,  helped  to  win  for 
Northampton!1 

It  is  impossible  before  leaving  the  subject  of  Mr.  Brad- 
laugh's  struggle  for  liberty  of  conscience,  not  to  recall  the 
very  similar  episode  of  Wilkes'  fight  with  the  House  of 
Commons  a  little  more  than  a  hundred  years  earlier.  Mr. 
Labouchere,  speaking  in  the  House  on  the  occasion  of 
Bradlaugh's  presenting  himself  to  take  the  oath,  after  his 
re-election  in  1884,  pointed  out  that  behind  his  colleague 
stood  the  people  of  England.  He  continued:  "I  do  not  say 
this  from  any  feeling  of  regard  or  affection  for  Mr.  Bradlaugh 
as  an  individual;  assume  if  you  like  that  Mr.  Bradlaugh  is 
the  vilest  of  men  [Mr.  Warton,  Hear,  hear!],  as  was  stated 
by  Mr.  Wilkes,  '  in  attacking  the  rights  of  the  vilest  of  men 
you  have  attacked  the  rights  of  the  most  noble  of  mankind.' " a 
Bradlaugh  established  the  principle  that  legislative  rights 
are  wholly  independent  of  religious  belief,  and  that  what 
Drummond  Wolff  called  "the  distinct  negation  of  anything 
like  perpetual  morality  or  conscience  and  the  existence  of 
God,"  does  not  affect  a  man's  capacity  for  the  exercise  of 
his  political  rights. 

1  Northampton  Echo,  January  17,  1912. 
•  Hansard,  February  n,  1884,  vol.  284. 


164  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1880-1881] 

This  means  that  the  modern  state  is  non-theistic,  and 
that  our  civilisation,  of  which  the  state  is  the  political  expres- 
sion, is  based  on  those  positive  social  needs  of  man  to  which 
theological  problems,  however  interesting  in  themselves, 
are  irrelevant.  Thus,  in  Bradlaugh's  victory,  to  the  win- 
ning of  which  Mr.  Labouchere  so  powerfully  contributed, 
one  of  the  most  important  principles  of  1789  was  definitely 
ratified  by  the  representatives  of  the  people,  the  Lords, 
spiritual  and  temporal,  and  the  sovereign  of  this  country. 

A  truly  momentous  event,  the  importance  of  which  it 
would  be  hard  to  overestimate.  For  it  means  that  God  has 
ceased  to  exist  in  England  as  a  political  entity.  In  like 
manner,  the  action  of  Wilkes,  in  severely  criticising  the 
Speech  from  the  Throne  in  the  North  Briton  for  April  23, 
1762,  and  condemning  the  Ministers  who  were  responsible 
for  its  production,  raised,  and  settled  for  ever  in  England  the 
question  of  the  political  position  of  the  sovereign.  In  both 
cases  the  man  who  dared  to  raise  such  points  was  pursued 
rancorously  and  unfairly  by  the  partisans  of  officialdom,  in 
both  cases  the  utmost  force  of  law  and  order  arrayed  against 
him  failed.  The  enemies  of  Wilkes  and  Bradlaugh  failed, 
because  the  stars  in  their  courses  fought  against  them — 
because  the  time  had  gone  by  when  kings  could  rule  as  well 
as  reign,  or  when  the  qualification  of  religious  belief  was 
necessary  for  the  full  rights  of  citizenship. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

LABOUCHERE  AND  IRELAND 

1881-1883 

WHEN  Lord  Cowper,  the  Irish  Viceroy,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Chief  Secretary,  Mr.  Forster,  represented 
to  Mr.  Gladstone  in  the  early  autumn  of  1880  the  necessity 
of  coercive  measures  for  the  government  of  Ireland,  he  found 
the  Prime  Minister  profoundly  opposed  to  departure  from 
the  ordinary  law.  The  Viceroy  was  pressed  to  suspend  the 
Habeas  Corpus  Act  by  every  agent,  every  landlord,  every 
magistrate  in  the  country.  The  number  of  outrages  against 
life  and  property  had  increased  pari  passu  with  the  number 
of  evictions.  The  Land  League,  which  had  been  formed, 
under  the  presidency  of  Parnell,  the  preceding  year,  had 
taken  up  the  cause  of  the  evicted  tenants  and,  by  establish- 
ing the  elaborate  system  of  persecution,  named  after  its 
first  victim,  Lord  Mayo's  English  agent,  Captain  Boycott, 
rendered  it  almost  impossible  to  let  farms  from  which  a 
tenant  had  been  evicted.  When,  on  September  25,  Lord 
Mountmorres,  a  poor  man  with  a  small  estate,  who  could 
really  not  afford  to  reduce  his  rents,  was  murdered,  such 
was  the  popular  detestation  of  the  murdered  man  that  the 
owner  of  the  nearest  house  refused  shelter  to  the  corpse,  no 
hearse  could  be  obtained  to  convey  it  to  the  grave,  and  the 
family  had  to  fly  to  England.  The  maiming  of  cattle,  a 

165 


166  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1881- 

method  of  reprisal  constantly  adopted  by  evicted  tenants, 
further  contributed  to  inflame  English  opinion,  both  in  and 
out  of  Ireland,  against  the  Nationalist  party,  who  were  held 
responsible  by  the  man  in  the  street  for  everything  that  was 
going  on.  Mr.  Bright  was  still  more  opposed  than  Mr. 
Gladstone  to  the  repeal  of  the  Habeas  Corpus,  and  so  was 
Mr.  Chamberlain,  who  had  joined  the  Government  as 
President  of  the  Board  of  Trade.  Before  giving  way  to  Mr. 
Forster,  the  Cabinet  determined  to  use  the  ordinary  methods 
of  law,  and  prosecuted  the  heads  of  the  Land  League  for 
"conspiring  to  prevent  the  payment  of  rent,  resist  the  pro- 
cess of  eviction,  and  obstruct  the  letting  of  surrendered 
farms."  The  public  announcement  of  the  prosecution  in 
no  way  intimidated  the  Land  League.  The  prosecution, 
although  announced  on  November  3,  did  not,  on  account 
of  legal  delays,  begin  until  after  Christmas.  Disorder  at 
once  became  more  rampant  and  outrages  more  frequent. 
On  November  23,  Cowper  wrote  again  to  Mr.  Gladstone, 
threatening  his  resignation  in  the  following  January,  if  he 
were  not  given  fuller  powers.  On  December  12,  he  made 
his  last  appeal,  urging  that  Parliament  should  be  immediately 
summoned.  Mr.  Gladstone  yielded  the  very  day  before 
the  trial  of  the  Land  League  began  in  Dublin,  and  summoned 
Parliament  for  January  6,  1881. 

On  the  first  night  of  the  session  Mr.  Forster  gave  notice 
of  the  introduction  of  Bills  for  the  protection  of  life  and 
property  in  Ireland.  But  the  Irish  members  had  taken  the 
phrase  in  the  Queen's  Speech  that  "additional  powers  are 
required  by  the  Irish  Government  for  the  protection  of  life 
and  property,"  as  a  declaration  of  war,  and  commenced 
the  policy  of  obstruction  of  which  they  were  afterwards  to 
make  so  powerful  a  weapon.  They  succeeded  in  protracting 
the  debate  on  the  Address  for  eleven  days. 

Forster' s  case  was  a  very  simple  one.  The  Land  League 
was  supreme,  and  its  power  must  be  crippled.  This  could 
only  be  done  by  extending  the  range  of  the  executive.  With 


1883]  LABOUCKERE  AND  IRELAND  167 

the  suspension  of  Habeas  Corpus  the  authors  of  the  outrages, 
who  were  known  to  the  police,  could  be  arrested  and  the 
course  of  justice  would  not  be  interfered  with  by  corrupt 
evidence.  It  was  the  point  of  view  of  the  official  responsible 
for  public  order,  that  and  nothing  more.  Mr.  Parnell's 
view  pierced  the  surface  facts  of  the  case.  The  League  did 
nothing  but  organise  and  express  the  public  opinion  of 
Ireland.  The  Government's  policy  was  simply  one  of 
coercion,  that  is,  of  violence.  Although  it  was  admitted 
that  wrongs  were  endured,  the  Government's  policy  did 
not  include  any  method  of  redressing  those  wrongs.  Evic- 
tion of  tenants  who  could  not  possibly  pay  their  rent  through 
no  fault  of  their  own  was  palpable  injustice.  Let  that 
injustice  be  put  an  end  to,  and  outrages  would  soon  cease. 
It  was  clearly  the  duty  of  the  representatives  of  Ireland  to 
put  every  difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  passing  of  such  a 
measure  as  the  Chief  Secretary's. 

At  this  stage  of  his  career  Mr.  Labouchere  was  not  a 
Home  Ruler.  In  his  first  speech  to  his  electors  at  North- 
ampton,1 he  had  said:  "I  really  have  not  understood  myself 
what  Home  Rule  means.  I  should  be  exceedingly  sorry  to 
see  the  Union  between  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  done  away 
with.  I  think  it  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the  well-being 
of  both  countries,  but  I  am  myself  in  favour  of  as  much 
local  government,  not  only  in  Ireland,  but  in  all  parts  of 
England  as  possible."  He  was  voicing  the  views  of  Mr. 
Chamberlain,  whose  trumpet  from  the  beginning  had  set 
forth  no  uncertain  sound,  for  the  member  for  Birmingham 
was  then,  and  remained,  unalterably  opposed  to  the  separa- 
tion of  the  two  kingdoms,  and  to  the  institution  of  an 
Independent  Parliament  in  Dublin. 

On  January  27,  Forster's  Bill  for  the  Protection  of  Life 
and  Property  in  Ireland  having  been  introduced  three  days 
previously,  Mr.  Labouchere,  speaking  in  favour  of  an  amend- 
ment introduced  in  his  name  to  the  effect  "that  no  Bill  for 

1  Northampton  Mercury,  March  27,  1880. 


168  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1881- 

the  Protection  of  Life  and  Property  in  Ireland  will  be  satis- 
factory which  does  not  include  protection  to  the  tenant  in 
cases  where  it  can  be  shown,  to  the  satisfaction  of  a  Court 
of  Justice,  that  the  tenant's  rent  is  excessive  or  that  he  is 
unable,  owing  to  temporary  circumstances,  to  pay  it,"  said 
that,  while  he  was  a  genuine  supporter  of  the  Prime  Minister, 
he  did  not  intend  to  rain  down  blessings  on  that  gentleman's 
head  that  evening.  He  found  himself  occupying  a  singular 
position.  He  was  returned  there  as  a  Radical  by  a  very 
advanced  constituency,  and,  to  his  surprise,  he  found  himself 
almost  alone  with  his  colleague  as  an  advocate  of  Conser- 
vatism in  the  real,  though  not  in  the  party,  sense  of  the  word. 
He  was  there  to  defend  the  Habeas  Corpus.  He  was  ready 
to  admit  that  Englishmen  had  many  virtues,  but  they  were 
somewhat  intolerant,  and  they  were  curiously  intolerant 
when  any  country  under  their  rule  ventured  to  have  the 
same  virtues  as  themselves.  There  was  nothing  they  valued 
so  highly  as  self-government,  and  yet,  when  Ireland  asked  for 
self-government  in  local  matters,  they  regarded  the  demand 
as  something  monstrous  and  intolerable.  The  Chief  Secretary 
had  urged  that  the  Bill  must  be  passed  as  quickly  as  possible 
on  account  of  outrages!  He  must  remember  that  there  were 
such  things  as  standing  orders,  and  that  honourable  gentle- 
men opposite  would  be  able  to  delay  the  Bill  for  a  consider- 
able time.  ...  It  was  taking  a  really  too  Arcadian  view 
of  human  nature  to  suppose  that  honourable  gentlemen 
opposite  would  not  use — or  even  misuse — every  standing 
order  of  the  House  to  prevent  the  passing  of  such  a  Bill. 
The  right  honourable  gentleman  seemed  to  have  thought, 
in  pleading  urgency,  that  the  Irish  members  would  act  like 
the  "dilly,  dilly  ducks"  which  came  to  be  killed  when  they 
were  called.  The  reports  of  the  outrages  had  come  from 
magistrates  most  of  whom  were  landowners,  and  from  police 
constables;  and  they  knew  in  England  how  to  judge  of 
constables' evidence.  (Oh!  oh!)  He  quoted  a  return.  "In- 
jured persons  were  Margaret  Lydon,  Patrick  Whalem,  and 


1883]  LABOUCHERE  AND  IRELAND  169 

Bridget  Whalem.  It  appeared  that :  A  dispute  arose  about 
the  possession  of  a  small  plot  of  ground,  and  John  Lydon 
assaulted  the  injured  persons.  Yet,  in  the  very  next  case, 
John  Lydon  appeared  as  the  injured  person,  because  he  was 
assaulted  as  the  time  of  the  above  dispute  by  his  own  wife. 
This  was  obviously  a  little  domestic  difference  between  a 
husband  and  his  spouse,  yet  it  was  converted  into  two 
separate  outrages.  As  regarded  cattle  maiming,  it  was  no 
new  thing.  Dean  Swift  jeered  at  his  countrymen  on  the 
subject.  'Did  they,  like  Don  Quixote,  look  on  a  flock  of 
sheep  as  an  army?"  Labouchere  wound  up  his  speech, 
after  pointing  out  the  danger  of  the  Chief  Secretary's  "hide- 
ous doctrine  of  constructive  treason"  and  animadverting 
on  the  idea  of  making  use  of  secret  informers,  whom  he 
regarded  as  "the  lowest,  vilest,  and  most  contemptible  of 
the  human  race,"  by  stating  that  the  purpose  of  the  Bill 
was  not  to  suppress  outrages  or  exclusive  dealing,  but  solely 
to  enable  landlords  to  collect  their  rents.1  Mr.  Serjeant 
Simon  retorted  in  his  defence  of  the  Bill,  not  quite  unjustly 
perhaps,  that  Mr.  Labouchere's  speech  had  been  more 
facetious  than  fair,  more  humorous  than  consistent.  Cer- 
tainly the  John  Lydon  mixed  outrage  was  a  hardly  repre- 
sentative specimen  of  the  statistics  before  the  House.  The 
O'Donoghue,  on  the  other  hand,  had  listened  to  the  speech 
with  great  pleasure,  and  felt  sure  it  would  be  received  with 
satisfaction  by  a  larger  circle  outside  the  constituency  of 
Northampton  when  public  opinion  in  England  and  Scotland 
came  to  be  enlightened  on  this  subject.  Labouchere  con- 
tinued to  argue  against  the  Bill  in  Committee  in  every 
imaginable  way.  Much  of  his  argument  was  mere  heckling 
of  Mr.  Forster.  He  was  always  a  little  inclined  to  confuse 
the  floor  of  the  House  with  the  hustings,  a  state  of  mind 
which  sometimes  deprived  his  speeches  of  the  persuasive 
value  that  their  argumentative  ability  deserved.  Every 
now  and  then  he  made  a  crushing  point  against  the  Govern- 

1  Hansard,  Jan.  27,  1881,  vol.  257. 


170  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1881- 

ment.  "The  Home  Secretary  (Sir  William  Harcourt),"  he 
said,  "had  incited  a  prejudice  against  the  Land  League  by 
quoting  what  the  Fenians  had  done  in  America.  He  had 
read  a  speech  from  a  Mr.  Devoy,  an  American  Fenian,  to 
the  effect  that  he  had  contemplated  blowing  up  the  entire 
Government  of  this  country,  most  of  the  towns  in  this  country 
and  the  capital,  and,  is  this  monster,  the  Home  Secretary 
had  asked,  to  be  allowed  to  say  these  things  without  protest? 
He  had  pointed  out  the  terrible  consequences  of  this  speech : 
how  a  certain  Patrick  Stewart  immediately  subscribed  the 
sum  of  one  dollar  that  these  intentions  might  be  carried  out. 
.  .  .  Such  men  as  Redpath  (another  American  Fenian)  and 
Devoy,  the  Right  Honourable  gentleman  told  them,  would 
'come  over  to  Ireland,  and  the  Bill  is  intended  for  those 
gentlemen.'  Surely,"  pursued  Mr.  Labouchere  blandly, 
"the  Right  Honourable  gentleman  was  an  eminent  author- 
ity on  international  law  and  must  be  aware  that,  if  these 
Americans  were  to  come  over  to  Ireland,  and  if  they  were  to 
be  taken  up  on  mere  suspicion  and  put  in  prison  for  eighteen 
months  without  being  told,  or  without  their  Minister  in 
England  being  told,  for  what  they  were  put  in  prison,  we 
should  get,  and  rightly  too,  into  considerable  difficulty  with 
the  American  Government.  (Sir  William  Harcourt:  No!) 
The  Right  Honourable  gentleman  said  no.  Perhaps  he 
meant  that  he  would  get  us  out  of  the  difficulty.  But 
would  it  not  have  been  better  to  have  brought  in  an  Aliens 
Bill  than  to  suspend  the  Habeas  Corpus  in  Ireland?  It  was 
a  strange  thing  to  suspend  the  Habeas  Corpus  in  Ireland, 
because  an  American  had  made  a  speech  in  America."1 
This  characteristic  speech  is  a  very  good  specimen  of  Labou- 
chere's  method  in  attack.  His  manner  was  one  of  irre- 
sponsible persiflage,  stinging  and  exasperating  those  of  his 
opponents  whom  it  failed  to  amuse, 2  his  matter  both  sound 
and  serious.  It  would  have  been  difficult  to  have  summed  up 

1  Hansard,  Feb.  25,  1881,  vol.  258. 

*To  their  credit,  be  it  said,  they  generally  were  amused. 


x883]  LABOUCHERE  AND  IRELAND  171 

Forster's  Bill  better  than  Labouchere  did  in  the  following 
list  of  "Alleged  advantages  and  real  disadvantages  of  the 
Bill."  (i)  Alleged  advantages:  (a)  it  would  drive  a  certain 
number  of  crazy  Fenians  out  of  Ireland,  (b)  It  would  lead 
to  the  imprisonment  of  certain  village  ruffians  who  probably 
deserve  it.  (c)  It  would  enable  landlords  to  collect  their 
rents.  (2)  Disadvantages:  (a)  It  would  do  away  with  the 
useful  action  of  the  Land  League,  (b)  It  would  enable  the 
landlords  not  only  to  collect  their  rents  from  men  who  could 
pay  them,  but  also  to  evict  from  their  small  holdings  men 
who  could  not — the  very  thing  the  Land  League  had  been 
preventing,  (c)  It  would  alienate  all  classes  in  Ireland  from 
the  English  connection.  (</)  It  would  substitute  secret 
societies  for  the  open  society  called  the  Land  League,  (e) 
The  Government  would  be  playing  into  the  hands  of  the 
Fenians,  who  would  acquire  an  influence  they  did  not  then 
possess.  Certainly  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  prophesy 
more  accurately  what  were  the  actual  consequences  of  the 
passing  of  the  Coercion  Bill.  He  concluded  his  speech  on 
this  occasion  by  warning  the  Irish  members  not  to  persevere 
in  a  policy  of  obstruction,  both  on  account  of  the  prejudice 
it  created  against  them  and  on  account  of  the  excellence  of 
their  cause.  Let  that  cause  be  stated  fairly  and  honestly 
to  the  English  people — let  it  be  allowed  to  stand  on  its  own 
merits.  He  believed  many  people  in  England  were  already 
very  much  inclined  to  take  the  same  view  as  many  Irishmen 
on  Irish  matters.  There  were  many  points  on  which  the 
democracy  of  England  and  Ireland  ought  to  unite.  He 
therefore  hoped  that  honourable  gentlemen  opposite  would 
not  be  carried  away  by  the  irritation  of  the  moment.  He 
hated  the  Coercion  Bill  as  much  as  they  did,  but  he  could  not 
shut  his  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  Liberals,  not  the  Conserva- 
tives, had  done  the  best  for  Ireland,  and  he  wound  up  with  a 
eulogy  in  this  connection  of  the  "two  patron  saints  of  my 
political  calendar" — Mr.  Gladstone  and  Mr.  Bright.1 

1  Hansard.  Feb.  25,  1881,  voL  258. 


172  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1881- 

The  Arms  Bill — or  the  Peace  Preservation  Bill,  as  it  was 
called — by  which  the  Coercion  Bill  was  promptly  followed, 
was  another  target  for  Mr.  Labouchere's  darts.  He  pointed 
out  the  suspicious  nature  of  the  support  given  by  the  Opposi- 
tion to  the  Government,  which  delayed  the  introduction  of 
Liberal  legislation  for  England  and  widened  the  breach 
between  the  Liberal  party  and  the  Irish. 

Perhaps  the  most  serious  and  immediate  consequence 
of  the  Coercion  Act  was  the  arrest  of  Parnell,  which  took 
place  on  October  13.  This  event,  which  caused  frenzied 
joy  in  England,  was  one  of  Forster's  worst  mistakes  in 
Ireland.  The  Land  League  at  once  issued  a  "No  rent" 
manifesto.  It  was  signed  by  Parnell,  Dillon,  Sexton,  and 
Brennan,  who  were  all  in  Kilmainham  Gaol,  and  Egan,  the 
treasurer  of  the  League  at  Paris.  Forster,  not  sorry  to  be 
able  to  do  so,  retorted  by  proclaiming  the  League  an  illegal 
association,  the  legality  of  which  proceeding  was  doubtful, 
according  to  Lord  Eversley.  It  had  been  impossible  to  con- 
vict the  League  of  a  violation  of  the  law  and  the  Coercion 
Act  contained  no  clause  authorising  its  suppression.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  "  No  rent "  manifesto  was  also  an  obvious 
blunder.  The  clergy  denounced  it  from  every  altar  in 
Ireland,  as  indeed  they  could  hardly  help  doing,  and  only 
in  the  west,  where  large  bodies  of  the  poorer  tenants  were 
already  refusing  to  pay  their  rents  without  deduction,  did 
it  take  effect.  The  agrarian  war  was  consequently  intensi- 
fied, and  English  opinion  greatly  incensed.  The  local  heads 
of  the  League  were  arrested  all  over  the  disturbed  areas, 
and  the  Coercion  Act  pressed  into  the  service  of  landlords 
to  enable  them  to  collect  their  rents,  no  matter  how  excessive 
they  might  be.  Evictions  were  naturally  multiplied.  Most 
serious  consequence  of  all — and  directly  traceable  to  the 
ill-advised  arrest  of  Parnell  and  the  leaders  of  the  Land 
League — secret  societies,  with  their  inevitable  accompani- 
ment of  crime  and  outrage,  began  to  take  the  place  of  open 
and,  at  least  relatively,  constitutional  agitation.  Parnell 


1883]  LABOUCHERE  AND  IRELAND  173 

had  been  asked  by  an  admirer,  who  would  take  his  place  in 
case  of  his  arrest.  "  Captain  Moonlight  will  take  my  place," 
was  his  grim  reply.  Captain  Moonlight  did  so.  During 
the  months  preceding  the  passing  of  the  Coercion  Act  there 
were  seven  homicides,  twenty -one  cases  of  firing  at  the 
person,  and  sixty- two  of  firing  into  dwellings. 

The  work  of  the  suppressed  Land  League  was  carried  on 
by  the  Ladies'  Land  League  under  the  presidency  of  ParnelTs 
sister.  The  ladies,  if  they  did  not  actually  stimulate  crime, 
did  little  to  suppress  it.  When  Parnell  eventually  emerged 
from  Kilmainham,  he  was  furious  with  them,  both  on 
account  of  their  policy  and  their  extravagance.  Outrages 
had  increased,  and  they  had  spent  £70,000  during  the  seven 
months  of  his  incarceration! 

The  Coercion  Act  had  evidently  failed  to  produce  the 
results  expected.  Nevertheless,  Forster  and  Lord  Cowper 
could  think  of  nothing  but  more  coercion.  Gladstone 
refused  to  accede  to  their  proposals.  He  had  never  liked 
coercion  himself,  and  his  hands  were  strengthened  by  the 
support  of  Chamberlain  in  the  Cabinet,  who  was  energeti- 
cally backed  in  the  press  by  John  Morley,  then  editing  the 
Pall  Matt  Gazette.  Meanwhile  Parnell,  realising  that  his 
prolonged  detention  at  Kilmainham  was  damaging  his  cause, 
entered  into  negotiations  with  the  Government  by  means  of 
Captain  O'Shea;  and  although  Mr.  Gladstone  was,  no  doubt, 
literally  truthful  in  denying  the  existence  of  any  formal 
"  treaty,"  an  understanding  was  reached  between  the  Govern- 
ment and  the  Irish  leader.  The  main  source  of  unrest  and 
disorder  in  the  country  was,  according  to  Parnell,  the  smaller 
tenants,  some  100,000  in  number,  who  were  utterly  unable 
to  pay  the  arrears  of  rent  due  from  them,  and  were,  in  con- 
sequence, liable  at  any  moment  to  eviction.  The  Govern- 
ment must  deal  in  a  generous  and  statesmanlike  way  with 
the  lot  of  these  unhappy  people.  Parnell,  if  free  to  resume 
an  effective  leadership,  would  be  able  to  do  much  to  curb 
the  criminal  forces  set  in  motion  by  the  secret  societies. 


174  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1881- 

On  May  2,  Parnell  and  his  companions  were  released  from 
Kilmainham,  and  Forster  and  Lord  Cowper  at  once  resigned. 

Forster  made  his  statement  in  the  House  on  May  4. 
It  was  to  the  effect  that  the  state  of  the  country  did  not 
justify  the  release  of  Parnell  without  a  new  Coercion  Act. 
Just  as  he  had  uttered  the  following  words,  "There  are  two 
warrants  which  I  signed  in  regard  to  the  member  for  the 
City  of  Cork — "  Parnell  entered  the  House.  It  was  a 
dramatic  scene.  Deafening  cheers  broke  from  the  Irish 
benches,  drowning  Forster's  voice  and  preventing  the  con- 
clusion of  the  sentence  from  being  heard.  Parnell  quickly 
surveyed  the  situation,  and,  bowing  to  the  Speaker,  passed 
"with  head  erect  and  measured  tread  to  his  place,  the  victor 
of  the  House." 

Mr.  Gladstone  answered  Forster,  saying  that  the  cir- 
cumstances which  had  warranted  Parnell' s  arrest  no  longer 
existed,  and  that  "he  had  an  assurance  that  if  the  Govern- 
ment dealt  with  the  arrears  question,  the  three  members 
released  would  range  themselves  on  the  side  of  law  and 
order."  Parnell  then  intervened,  saying  that  he  had  in  no 
way  suggested  any  bargain  with  the  Prime  Minister,  but 
that  there  could  be  no  doubt  that  a  settlement  of  the  arrears 
question  would  have  an  enormous  effect  in  the  restoration  of 
law  and  order,  and  would  take  away  the  last  excuse  for  outrage. 

Irish  prospects  had  not  looked  brighter  in  the  House  for 
many  a  year,  but,  unfortunately,  only  two  days  after  the 
memorable  afternoon  on  which  Mr.  Gladstone  dissociated 
himself  from  his  sometime  Irish  Minister  and  threw  himself 
into  Parnell's  arms,  England  was  horrified  by  a  terrible 
tragedy.  Lord  Spencer  and  Lord  Frederick  Cavendish  had 
been  appointed  to  the  vacant  offices  of  Lord  Cowper  and 
Mr.  Forster.  The  new  Chief  Secretary  and  Mr.  Burke, 
permanent  Under-Secretary,  were  murdered  close  to  the 
Vice-regal  Lodge  in  Phoenix  Park,  on  the  evening  following 
Lord  Spencer's  state  entry  into  Dublin.  Mr.  O'Brien,  in 
his  Life  of  Parnell,  says  that  "Cavendish  was  killed  simply 


1883]  LABOUCHERE  AND  IRELAND  175 

through  the  accident  of  his  being  with  Mr.  Burke,  whose 
death  was  the  real  object  of  the  assassins."1  No  one  was 
more  overwhelmed  by  the  tragedy  than  Parnell  himself. 
"How  can  I,"  he  said,  "carry  on  a  public  agitation  if  I  am 
stabbed  in  the  back  in  this  way?" 

The  House  met  on  the  8th,  and  Parnell  made  a  short, 
straightforward  speech,  condemning  the  outrages  in  un- 
qualified terms.  He  also  expressed  the  fear  that  the  Govern- 
ment would  feel  themselves  obliged,  under  the  circumstances, 
to  revert  to  coercion.  His  fear  was  justified,  and  on  May  1 1 , 
the  Home  Secretary,  Sir  William  Harcourt,  introduced  a 
Crimes  Bill,  based  on  previous  suggestions  of  Lord  Cowper. 

It  is  easy  to  see  now  that  this  proceeding  was  a  mistake. 
It  should  have  been  evident  to  any  unbiassed  observer  that, 
far  from  Parnell  and  the  League  being  responsible  for  out- 
rages, whether  agrarian  or  political,  it  was  during  the  im- 
prisonment of  Parnell  and  after  the  dissolution  of  the  League 
that  they  increased  and  finally  led  up  to  the  tragedy  of 
Phoenix  Park.  But  the  Government  had  to  count  with 
English  opinion,  which  was  exasperated  by  the  murder  of 
Burke  and  Cavendish  almost  to  the  point  of  hysteria.  To 
most  English  people  Ireland  was  little  more  than  a  geo- 
graphical expression ;  in  so  far  as  it  connoted  anything  else, 
it  bored  and  disgusted  them.  Parnell  indicated  the  true 
inwardness  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  altered  attitude  in  a  speech 
on  May  20,  in  which  he  said :  "  I  regret  that  the  event  in 
Phoenix  Park  has  prevented  him  (Mr.  Gladstone)  continuing 
the  course  of  conciliation  that  we  had  expected  from  him. 
I  regret  that,  owing  to  the  exigencies  of  his  party,  of  his 
position  in  the  country,  he  has  felt  himself  compelled  to  turn 
from  that  course  of  conciliation  and  concession  into  the 
horrible  paths  of  coercion." 

Labouchere  took  Mr.  Parnell's  view  of  the  situation, 
and  argued  with  much  zest  against  the  worst  features  of  the 
Crimes  Bill.  Speaking  on  May  18,  on  the  second  reading, 

1  R.  Barry  O'Brien,  Life  of  Parnell. 


I76  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1881- 

he  said  that  it  was  clear  from  the  fact  that  the  House  was 
now  asked  to  pass  a  remedial  measure  (the  Arrears  Bill)  and 
a  Coercion  Bill  that  the  former  policy  of  the  Government 
had  been  a  failure. 

But  the  present  Coercion  Bill  erred  precisely  in  the  same 
direction  that  the  other  had  done,  because  it  was  not  aimed 
solely  at  outrage,  but  was  directed  at  honourable  members 
sitting  opposite.  In  fact  he  (Mr.  Labouchere)  could  see  the 
trail  of  the  honourable  member  for  Bradford  (Mr.  W.  E. 
Forster)  and  of  his  policy  in  this  measure.  The  Government 
ought  to  try  to  get  the  majority  of  the  Irish  people  on  their 
side  to  fight  with  them  against  outrage.  Was  this  Bill 
likely  to  enlist  the  sympathies  of  the  Irish  members?  Mr. 
Labouchere  expressed  the  principle  of  his  objection  to  the 
Bill  by  saying  that  as  long  as  political  and  criminal  elements 
were  mixed  up  in  the  Bill  he  could  not  vote  for  it.  He 
objected  particularly  to  the  following  features.  The  "intimi- 
dation clause/'  went  too  far,  being  directed  against  boycot- 
ting, which,  although  it  had  its  bad  features,  was,  as  a  system 
of  exclusive  trading,  legitimate.  He  considered  it  "mon- 
strous" that  the  authorities  should  have  power  to  detain  any 
person  out  after  sunset.  He  objected  to  the  clause  dealing 
with  the  press,  and  he  thought  that  three  years  was  too  long 
a  period  for  the  Bill  to  remain  in  force.  Who  could  say  who 
might  be  Lord-Lieutenant  in  three  years?  He  could  not 
imagine  anything  more  horrible  than  that,  say,  the  right 
honourable  gentleman  the  member  for  North  Lincolnshire 
(Mr.  J.  Lowther)  should  be  invested  with  the  powers  of  the 
Bill.  The  consequence  would  perhaps  be,  that  if  the  Prime 
Minister  went  over  to  Ireland,  he  would  be  arrested  and  put 
into  prison.  His  admiration  for  the  Prime  Minister  was 
increasing,  but  all  his  colleagues  were  not  as  well  minded  as 
himself.  There  seemed  to  be  two  currents  in  the  cabinet — 
some  members  who  desired  to  do  all  they  could  for  Ireland 
being  baulked  by  those  of  their  colleagues  called  Whigs.1 

1  Hansard,  May  14,  1881. 


1883]  LABOUCHERE  AND  IRELAND  177 

Mr.  Labouchere  worked  out  of  Parliament,  as  well  as  in, 
for  the  improvement  of  the  Bill.  He  was  incessantly  nego- 
tiating both  with  the  Government  and  the  Irish  leaders  to 
defeat  what  he  felt  to  be  its  impossible  features  and  to  modify 
the  remaining  ones  in  the  direction  of  conciliation.  He  had 
written  two  days  before  the  speech  just  mentioned  to  Mr. 
Chamberlain  as  follows : 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  May  16, 1882. 

DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  enclose  Bill  with  Healy's  amend- 
ments. He  says  that  what  he  means  in  the  suggested  changes 
in  the  Intimidation  Clause  is,  that  only  a  person  who  actually 
threatens  a  person  with  injury  should  come  under  the  provisions 
of  the  Bill.  What  he  objects  to  is  constructive  intimidation. 

I  went  through  the  Bill  thus  amended  with  Parnell.  He 
agrees  with  them  in  the  main,  but  would  like  to  have  the  opinion 
of  a  lawyer  with  regard  to  them.  Like  Healy,  his  chief  objection 
is  to  constructive  intimidation.  He  says  that  if  the  Government 
will  meet  him  and  his  party  in  the  conciliatory  spirit  of  the 
amendments,  he  will  promise  that  the  opposition  to  the  Bill  shall 
be  conducted  on  honest  Parliamentary  lines,  and  that  there  shall 
be  no  abstention.  He  specially  urges  that  the  Bill  shall  only  be 
in  operation  until  the  close  of  next  session;  he  puts  this  on  two 
grounds:  (i)  That  the  Tories  may  possibly  come  in  at  the  end 
of  that  time.  (2)  That  he  may  be  able  to  advise  the  Irish  to  be 
quiet  in  the  hopes  of  no  renewal  of  the  Bill. 

He  says  that  he  is  in  a  very  difficult  position  between  the 
Government  and  the  secret  societies.  The  latter,  he  says,  are 
more  numerous  than  are  supposed ;  that  most  of  those  connected 
with  them  only  wish  to  be  let  alone,  but  that  he  greatly  fears  that 
if  they  are  disgusted  they  will  commit  outrages.  The  late 
murders,  he  seems  to  think,  were,  when  agrarian,  the  acts  of  men 
who  had  a  grudge  against  a  particular  individual,  and,  when 
political,  the  acts  of  skirmishers  from  America.  I  really  think 
thac  he  is  most  anxious  to  be  able  to  support  the  Government; 
he  fully  admits  that  a  Bill  is  necessary  on  account  of  English 
opinion,  but  he  does  not  wish  to  have  it  applied  to  himself,  and 
he  doubts  whether  it  will  be  really  effectual  against  the  outrage 
mongers. 


178  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1881- 

Healy  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  if  the  Prime  Minister  or  you 
were  to  administer  the  Bill  it  would  do  no  harm,  and  that  he  is 
not  greatly  afraid  of  it  in  the  hands  of  Lord  Spencer,  but  that  it 
would  be  a  monstrous  weapon  of  oppression  in  the  hands  of  Jim 
Lowther.  I  am  sure  that  with  conciliation  you  can  now,  for 
the  first  time,  get  the  Parnellites  on  your  side. 

This  letter  Mr.  Chamberlain  sent  to  Mr.  Gladstone, 
promising  to  bring  the  draft  of  the  Bill  to  the  House  that 
afternoon. 

Mr.  Labouchere  continued  to  Mr.  Chamberlain  on  the 
following  day: 

He  (Healy)  points  out  that  even  the  Conservative  news- 
papers are  against  the  Newspaper  Clause,  and  he  wants  it  made 
applicable  only  to  newspapers  printed  out  of  Ireland.  With 
regard  to  the  Search  Clause,  he  will  make  a  fight  for  nominative 
warrants,  and  he  also  wants  an  amendment  securing  an  indemnity 
in  case  of  injury  done  to  property  by  the  searchers.  He  points 
out  that  there  ought  to  be  a  right  of  appeal  from  the  County 
Court  Judge  to  the  Queen's  Bench.  With  respect  to  the  Intimi- 
dation Clause,  he  seems  to  approve  of  cutting  out  the  definition 
clause,  but  is  very  anxious  for  some  restriction  in  the  terms  of 
the  clause,  so  that  there  may  be  no  crime  of  constructive  intimi- 
dation. 

There  is  to  be  a  private  meeting  at  one  to-morrow  of  himself, 
Parnell,  T.  P.  O'Connor,  and  Sexton.  He  will  say  to  them  that 
he  thinks  that  Government  will  agree  to  the  County  Court 
Judges  and  to  the  period  of  the  Bill  being  shortened.  He  will, 
however,  before  the  meeting,  go  further  into  details  as  regards 
the  position  with  Parnell.  He  is  most  desirous  that  there  should 
be  no  plea  for  saying  that  there  is  a  bargain  of  any  kind.  I  have 
told  him  that,  in  the  Prime  Minister,  they  have  a  friend,  but  that 
they  must  take  into  consideration  his  position  as  the  leader  of  a 
Government  where  possibly  all  are  not  as  well  disposed,  and  as 
the  head  of  a  country  where  there  is  a  popular  outcry  for  stringent 
measures. 

On  May  22,  he  wrote  again,  after  a  further  interview 
with  Parnell: 


1883]  LABOUCHERE  AND  IRELAND  179 

This  is  about  the  sum  total  of  what  Parnell  took  an  hour  to 
tell  me.  He  does  not  in  the  least  complain  of  you,  and  really  is 
most  anxious  to  get  on  with  the  Government  if  possible.  He 
wants  me  to  let  him  know  as  soon  as  possible  to-morrow  whether 
he  is  to  consider  that  there  is  to  be  no  concession. 

Parnell  says :  That  the  Arrears  Bill  has  been  very  well  received 
in  Ireland,  and  that,  if  it  be  followed  by  one  making  certain 
modifications  of  no  very  important  character  in  the  Land  Bill, 
he  is  convinced  that  the  situation  will  greatly  improve,  provided 
that  concessions  be  made  in  the  Coercion  Bill. 

He  suggests  that  the  Coercion  and  the  Arrears  Bill  move 
forward  part  passu,  and  that  only  small  progress  be  made  with 
the  Coercion  Bill  before  Whitsuntide,  in  order  to  give  time 
for  the  passions  to  cool,  and  for  persons  to  see  by  experience  that 
the  condition  of  Ireland  is  not  so  bad  as  is  supposed. 

If  urgency  is  to  be  voted  on  the  Coercion  Bill,  he  asks  that 
it  should  be  voted  by  a  simple  majority,  and  that  it  should  be 
stated  that  it  will  be  used  whenever  any  Legislative  measures  in 
regard  to  Ireland  are  brought  forward  during  the  Session  and 
obstructed  by  the  Conservatives. 

He  greatly  regrets  the  speech  of  Davitt,  but  says  that  he 
(Davitt)  has  no  intention  to  go  to  Ireland,  and  that  his  land 
scheme  is  a  little  fad  of  his  own. 

He  says  that  he  is  most  anxious  for  a  modus  vivendi,  and  be- 
lieves that  if  the  present  opportunity  for  establishing  one  be  let 
pass,  it  is  not  likely  to  recur.  He  and  his  friends,  he  says,  are 
incurring  the  serious  risk  of  assassination  in  their  efforts  to  bring 
it  about,  and  he  thinks  that  his  suggestions  ought  to  be  judged  on 
their  merits,  but  that,  with  the  Coercion  Act  as  it  is,  there  will 
be  so  much  anger  and  ill-feeling  in  Ireland,  that  all  alliance  with 
the  Liberal  party  will  be  impossible. 

He  points  out,  not  as  a  matter  of  bargain,  but  as  a  fact,  that 
the  Liberals  may — if  only  there  be  concessions  on  the  Coercion 
Bill,  and  a  few  modifications  in  the  Land  Bill — count  on  the 
Irish  vote,  as  against  the  Conservatives,  and  suggests  that  this 
will  make  the  Government  absolutely  safe,  even  though  there 
be  Whig  defections. 

Mr.  Labouchere  continued,  as  will  be  seen  by  the  fol- 


i8o  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1881- 

lowing  letters  to  Mr.  Chamberlain,  to  press  the  views  of  the 
Irish  leaders  upon  the  Government. 


10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  June  3,  1882. 

DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — We  have  done  our  best  during  your 
absence  to  hold  our  own  against  Harcourt.  The  only  important 
issue  yet  raised  has  been  the  exclusion  of  treason  and  treason 
felony  from  the  Bill. 

On  Thursday  I  went  to  Grosvenor  from  Parnell  to  ask  that 
the  debate  should  be  adjourned.  Gladstone  said  that  Parnell 
ought  to  consider  that  after  Harcourt's  "no  surrender"  speech 
the  Government  would  not  be  able  to  give  in  the  next  day,  and 
that  the  division  if  taken  would  be  larger  on  Thursday  than  on 
Friday,  and  that  the  matter  might  be  reconsidered  in  Report. 
I  said  that  if  Government  would  give  any  private  assurance,  or 
if  Gladstone  would  say  in  the  House,  that  the  exclusion  would  be 
favourably  considered  on  Report,  he  could  have  the  division  at 
once.  This  latter  he  was  afraid  to  do,  for  Harcourt,  as  sulky  as 
a  bear,  was  glaring  at  him.  He  therefore  agreed  to  consent 
"with  regret"  to  the  adjournment.  When,  however,  Parnell 
moved  it,  our  idiots  and  the  Conservatives  shouted  so  loudly 
"no,"  that  a  division  had  to  be  taken.  Then  Healy  moved  it, 
on  which  Gladstone  did  hint  at  the  Report,  but  said  nothing 
definite,  except  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  consult  at  once 
with  the  Irish  Executive.  The  next  day,  Grosvenor  wrote  to  me 
to  say  that  he  spoke  without  prejudice  and  held  out  no  hope,  but 
would  I  call  "  Parnell's  attention  to  one  sentence  in  one  of  Glad- 
stone's concluding  speeches,  which  was  to  the  effect  that  it  was 
impossible  to  call  the  attention  of  the  Irish  Government  to  the 
question  of  omitting  treason  and  treason  felony,  between  last 
night  and  this  day,  and  therefore  it  would  be  better  to  bring  up 
the  question  again  on  Report.  Please  ask  Parnell  to  consider 
this  fact." 

On  Friday  morning  the  Irish  held  a  meeting,  and  they  agreed 
to  keep  what  they  did  secret,  decided  that  if  treason  were  retained, 
at  least  treason  felony  should  be  eliminated. 

On  the  House  meeting  Trevelyan  tackled  me,  and  said:  "I 
am  opposed  to  the  insertion  of  treason  and  treason  felony,  and 


1883]  LABOUCHERE  AND  IRELAND  181 

I  am  disposed  to  make  large  concessions.  You  know  that  I  am 
a  person  of  strong  will.  I  now  understand  the  Bill,  and  you  will 
see  how  I  shall  act." 

Grosvenor  also  said  that  I  need  not  believe  him,  as  he 
quite  agreed  with  me,  but  that  Harcourt  was  the  difficulty. 
I  asked  him  whether  he  would  agree  that  if  Lord  Spencer  said 
that  treason  and  treason  felony  were  not  needed,  they  should 
be  struck  out  on  Report.  He  replied  that  the  onus  could  not 
be  thrown  on  Spencer,  but  that  it  must  be  the  act  of  the 
Cabinet. 

So  after  seeing  Parnell  it  was  agreed  that  the  division  should 
be  taken  at  7.30. 

Why  Parnell  is  making  such  a  fight  over  this,  and  will  make 
a  fight  over  the  Intimidation  Clause,  is  that  unless  concession  be 
made,  he  will  find  it  difficult  to  hold  his  own.  Egan,  he  says, 
wants  to  carry  on  the  agitation  from  Paris,  in  which  case  it  will 
be  illegal ;  he  wants  to  carry  it  on  in  Dublin,  in  which  case  it  will 
be  legal.  If  concessions  are  made  he  will  have  his  way;  if  not, 
Egan  will  remain  the  master  in  Paris. 

Grosvenor  quite  admits  that  it  is  most  desirable  to  aid  Parnell 
to  remain  leader. 

Parnell  says: 

"  I  ask,  in  order  to  put  an  end  definitely  to  the  land  agitation: 
that  a  clause  should  be  introduced  into  the  Arrears  Bill,  allowing 
small  tenants  in  the  Land  Court  to  pay  on  Griffiths'  valuation 
until  their  cases  are  decided:  that  there  should  be  an  expansion 
of  the  Bright  Clauses  next  year  if  not  this;  and  that  a  Royal 
Commission  be  appointed  to  keep  the  agricultural  labourers 
quiet  by  taking  evidence.  Then  I  propose  to  ask  for  a  fair  and 
reasonable  measure  of  local  self-government,  such  as  an  English 
Government  can  grant,"  and  he  assures  me  that  in  all  questions 
between  me  and  the  Conservatives  and  the  Liberals,  the  latter 
shall  have  the  Irish  vote.  I  believe  that  he  is  perfectly  sincere, 
and  that  he  is  thoroughly  frightened  by  threats  of  assassination ; 
indeed  he  told  me  that  he  never  went  about  without  a  revolver 
in  his  pocket,  and  even  then  did  not  feel  safe. 

I  write  you  all  this  for  your  private  information,  as  you  may 
wish  to  know  the  exact  situation  at  present. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 


182  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1881- 

REFORM  CLUB,  June  8,  1882. 

DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Parnell  says  that  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  that  something  should  be  understood,  and  that  if  no 
concession  be  made  on  the  Intimidation  Clause,  he  considers 
that  things  revert  to  where  they  were  under  the  Forster  regime, 
and  that  they  will  fight  until  urgency  is  voted  and  then  fight  on 
urgency  until  a  coup  d'etat  is  carried  out.  Allowing  for  some 
exaggeration,  a  simple  consideration  of  his  position  towards  his 
party  shows  that  this  programme  is  necessarily  forced  upon  him. 

Surely  we  have  a  right  to  see  the  clause  as  Government  will 
agree  to  it,  before  passing  a  portion  of  it. 

I  believe  that  this  would  be  agreed  to :  that  intimidation  shall 
mean  any  threats,  etc.,  to  violence,  any  boycotting  which  involves 
danger  such,  for  instance,  as  a  doctor  refusing  to  attend  a  sick 
man,  or  a  refusal  to  supply  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  any  specific 
act  that  is  set  out  in  the  Bill,  but  nothing  more. 

C.  Russell,  Bryce,  and  Davy  are  trying  their  hands  at  this 
and  hope  to  be  able  to  frame  a  clause  on  these  lines.  You  will 
no  doubt  see  that,  if  something  cannot  be  done  to-morrow,  the 
fat  will  be  in  the  fire.  Would  it  not  therefore  be  well  to  leave 
the  clause  until  the  other  clauses  are  passed,  and  then  bring  it  on? 
— Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

<~- 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  June  9,  1882. 

DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  wrote  you  a  line  in  a  great  hurry 
last  night,  but  after  the  House  had  adjourned  I  again  saw  Parnell. 

He  is  most  anxious  that  Mr.  Gladstone  should  not  think 
that  obstruction  arises  from  any  ill-feeling  towards  him,  and 
that  he  does  not,  in  his  own  interests,  wish  it  to  be  thought  that 
anything  in  the  nature  of  a  bargain  is  to  be  made. 

But  he  wants  Mr.  Gladstone  to  know  facts.  He  says  that 
there  are  two  sections  in  the  Land  League.  The  funds  of  the 
League  are  at  Paris,  where  a  large  sum  is  invested  in  securities. 
Egan  wishes  to  trench  on  these  securities,  but  Parnell  and  Davitt 
have  been  able  to  stop  this,  and  at  present  nothing  is  expended 
but  the  weekly  contributions.  Egan  and  his  section  of  the 
League  are  furious  at  the  idea  of  the  League  being  converted 
into  a  moderate  tenant  right  Association,  with  its  headquarters 


1883]  LABOUCHERE  AND  IRELAND  183 

in  Dublin.  This  he  desires.  Every  day  the  ultras  of  his  party 
are  telling  him  that  nothing  is  gained  by  conciliation.  If  the 
Bill  is  to  be  passed  in  its  present  shape,  he  declares  that  neither 
he  nor  his  friends  can  have  anything  to  do  with  a  moderate  policy, 
and,  as  they  absolutely  decline  to  associate  themselves  with 
Egan  and  his  desperate  courses,  they  must  withdraw. 

The  result,  he  says,  will  be  that  the  Fenians  will  be  masters 
of  the  situation,  that  they  will  have  funds,  and  that  there  will  be 
assassinations  and  outrages  all  over  Ireland.  So  soon  as  he 
withdraws,  he  considers  that  his  own  life  will  not  be  worth  a  day's 
purchase. 

If  he  is  able  to  head  the  tenant  right  Association,  he  considers 
that  he  can  crush  out  the  Fenians — more  especially  if  something 
is  done  in  the  Arrears  Bill  to  meet  the  difficulty  of  the  small 
tenants,  who  are  waiting  for  their  cases  to  be  decided  on  in  the 
Land  Courts,  being  evicted,  before  their  cases  come  on,  for  non- 
payment of  excessive  rents.  If  nothing  be  done  in  this  matter, 
and  if  he  be  allowed  to  have  his  tenant  right  Association,  this  he 
says  will  be  his  great  difficulty  next  winter.  He  wishes  Mr. 
Gladstone  to  observe  that  Davitt  has  not  made  any  speeches  in 
Ireland,  and  he  says  that  he  obtained  this  pledge  from  him  in 
order  to  show  the  result  of  conciliation.  He  disagrees  entirely 
with  Davitt's  "nationalisation"  of  land  scheme,  and  says  that 
the  Irish  tenants  do  not  themselves  desire  it. 

He  again  suggests  whether  it  would  not  be  possible  to  insert 
limitations  in  the  Intimidation  Clause?  And  he  would  suggest 
that,  if  possible,  it  would  be  desirable  to  leave  the  clause  as  it 
stands,  without  any  definition  section,  and  to  say  that,  as  there 
is  no  desire  to  prevent  an  orderly  and  legal  tenant  right  Associa- 
tion, additions  will  be  made  to  the  clause  on  Report,  defining 
all  this. 

As  regards  the  tribunal,  he  hopes  that  Mr.  Gladstone  will 
agree  to  a  proviso,  making  the  Court  consist  of  a  magistrate 
and  a  barrister.  This  he  thinks  will  render  it  more  easy  to  accept 
the  intimidation  clause  with  the  limitations  that  he  suggests,  for 
many  of  the  resident  magistrates  are  half-pay  captains,  who  have 
been  appointed  by  interest,  and  who  are  hand  in  glove  with  the 
landlords,  and  some  of  them  are  certain  to  act  foolishly. 

If  this  be  accepted,  if  unlawful  associations  are  made  there 


184  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1881- 

which  the  Lord  Lieutenant  declares  to  be  unlawful ;  if  it  be  made 
a  crime  to  not  attend  an  unlawful  assembly,  but  to  riot  at,  or  to 
refuse  to  retire  if  called  upon  to  do  so  from  an  unlawful  assembly, 
I  do  not  think  that  he  attaches  very  great  importance  to  the 
duration  of  the  Act,  although  he  still  says  that  he  does,  but  he 
would  be  satisfied  if  the  duration  of  the  Act  were  for  three  years 
with  the  proviso  that  the  Lord  Lieutenant  has  to  prolong  it  (if  it 
is  prolonged)  by  a  proclamation  at  the  end  of  each  year.  He  is 
anxious  for  this,  because  he  thinks  that  he  could  do  much  for  the 
cause  of  law  and  order,  if  he  were  able  to  point  out  that  possibly 
the  Act  would  not  run  for  the  whole  three  years,  if  the  Irish  are 
quiet  and  peaceable. 

His  main  anxiety  at  the  present  moment  seems  to  be,  that 
Mr.  Gladstone  should  understand  the  position  of  the  Land  League 
and  of  its  leaders.  He  wishes  most  sincerely  to  fight  with  the 
Government  against  all  outrages,  and  he  complains  that  his  good 
intentions  are  met  every  moment  by  a  non  possumus  of  lawyers, 
who  seem  to  regard  it  as  a  matter  of  amour  propre  not  to  listen 
to  him,  and  he  says  (and  I  am  sure  he  believes  it)  that  the  result 
will  be  murders  and  outrages  which  will  end  in  martial  law. — 
Yours  truly,  H.  LABOUCHERE. 

P.S. — With  regard  to  supply,  he  says  that  he  thinks  it  a 
little  hard,  that  he  should  be  asked  not  to  obstruct  one  Bill, 
because  the  Conservatives  will  obstruct  another,  and  he  suggests 
that  Supply  might  be  taken  before  the  Report  on  the  Bill  now 
under  discussion,  with  some  sort  of  understanding  that  the  Irish 
would  not  put  down  notices  on  going  into  Committee  of  Supply. 
But  on  this  matter,  he  says  that  he  is  certain  that  if  Mr.  Glad- 
stone will  fairly  look  into  his  suggestions,  he  will  see  their  force, 
and  he  still  hopes  that  all  obstruction,  etc.,  etc.,  may  be  avoided. 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  June  10,  1882. 

DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — As  it  seems  to  be  understood  that 
Harcourt  had  stated  in  the  House  his  readiness  to  accept  the 
amendment  which  I  gave  you  yesterday,  Healy  has  put  it  down. 

As  regards  "unlawful,"  which  was  negatived  last  night,  I 
explained  to  Healy  that  it  was  impossible  to  make  the  limitation 
on  account  of  legal  and  technical  difficulties,  and  he  fully  accepted 
this  explanation. 


1883]  LABOUCHERE  AND  IRELAND  185 

With  regard  to  the  two  limitations  which  stand  in  Parnell's 
name,  and  which  they  ask  for,  I  told  Healy  that  the  wording 
of  the  limitations  could  not  be  used,  as  it  would  have  a  bad  effect 
to  say  in  an  Act  that  the  non-payment  of  rent  is  not  an  offence. 
To  this  he  assented,  and  is  quite  ready  to  accept  any  words, 
taken  from  the  Act  of  '75  or  from  anywhere  else,  which  will 
cover  the  limitations.  Would  it  not  be  as  well  to  have  the 
words  ready,  and  to  let  Parnell  have  them,  or  at  least  to  be 
ready  with  the  substituted  words  when  Parnell's  amendment 
comes  on? 

There  is  a  clause  about  exclusive  dealing.  When  the  sugges- 
tions which  I  submitted  to  you  were  being  discussed  by  Parnell 
and  Healy,  they  were  very  anxious  to  include  Davy's  amend- 
ment in  regard  to  exclusive  dealing,  substituting  for  "dealing 
with" — "buying,"  by  which  they  would  have  excluded  a  refusal 
to  buy  from  Boycotting.  I  got  them  to  say  that  this  was  not  to 
be  pressed  if  Government  declined  to  accept  the  amendment,  so 
I  did  not  trouble  you  with  it.  Late  last  evening  Parnell  wanted 
to  insist  on  it,  so  I  appealed  to  Healy.  He  said  that  they  were 
bound  not  to  insist  on  more  than  had  been  submitted  to  you,  as 
this  would  not  be  honourable,  and  therefore  all  trouble  on  this 
head  is  avoided. 

Of  course  they  will  in  the  House  divide  on  some  amendment 
in  regard  to  exclusive  dealing,  as  a  protest,  and  they  may  make 
one  or  two  speeches,  but  there  will  be  no  obstruction,  and  I  see 
no  reason  why  the  Bill  should  not  be  through  Committee  (not- 
withstanding Goschen's  gloomy  prognostications)  in  a  few  days. 

It  would,  I  think,  very  much  tend  to  aid  matters  if  Harcourt 
could  in  the  course  of  discussion  state,  that  in  all  cases  a  barrister 
will  sit  with  a  residential  magistrate.  He  has  already  said  that 
there  will  be  an  appeal  to  Quarter  Sessions,  which  in  Ireland 
means  an  appeal  to  the  County  Court  Judge.  But  some  of  the 
residential  magistrates  are  very  foolish  persons,  and  all  are 
regarded  as  men  in  the  landlords'  camp. 

Also,  is  it  not  possible  to  arrive  at  some  clear  definition  as  to 
what  is  an  unlawful  association?  Parnell  says  that  it  is  left  now 
to  any  residential  magistrate  to  decide  the  matter.  He  suggests 
that  only  such  associations  shall  be  unlawful,  for  the  purpose  of 
the  Act,  which  are  proclaimed  as  such  by  the  Lord  Lieutenant. 


186  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1881- 

But  provided  that  there  be  a  clear  definition,  he  does  not  care 
for  any  particular  wording. 

Parnell  and  Healy  request  me  to  say  that  they  are  very  grate- 
ful to  Mr.  Gladstone  for  meeting  them  half-way,  and  they  seem 
only  now  anxious  about  "  treason  felony."  As  Herschell  told  me 
that  he  thinks  everything  necessary  will  be  covered  by  the 
word  "treason,"  I  hope  that  this  matter  will  also  be  settled  satis- 
factorily.— Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

P.S. — Parnell  would  not  like  any  one  but  you  and  Mr. 
Gladstone  to  know  about  his  dispute  with  Egan,  and  the  embargo 
on  the  League  funds,  except  in  a  very  general  way. 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  June  24,  1882. 

DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  saw  Parnell,  and  spoke  to  him  as  you 
wished. 

His  answer  is  practically  this : 

"I  acknowledge  that  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Mr.  Chamberlain 
have  acted  fairly,  and  so  far  as  I  can  I  should  always  be  ready  to 
meet  their  wishes.  But  I  deny  that  we  have  obtained  the  con- 
cessions that  we  expected.  I  am  not  prepared  to  go  back  to 
Ireland  and  engage  in  bringing  the  agitation  within  constitutional 
limits,  on  the  mere  chance  of  Lord  Spencer  not  arresting  me. 
The  Fenians  want  one  thing:  the  Ladies'  League  another:  the 
people  in  Paris  (Egan)  another:  and  I  another.  Therefore  I 
shall  limit  my  action  to  Parliament  and  leave  the  Government 
and  the  Fenians  to  fight  it  out  in  Ireland.  The  Cabinet  do  not 
seem  to  realise  that  the  Crimes  Bill  is  a  very  complex  one,  and 
very  loosely  drawn  up.  There  has  been  no  obstruction  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  word,  although  I  admit  that  the  Irish  have 
repeated  again  and  again  the  same  arguments  on  amendments. 
But  this  I  cannot  help,  unless  I  tell  them  that  they  will  get  some- 
thing by  holding  their  tongues.  When  the  Conservatives  threat- 
ened obstruction  on  Procedure,  this  was  met  by  telling  them  that 
the  majority  resolution  would  not  be  pressed  if  they  would 
facilitate  business.  Why  should  not  the  same  arrangement  be 
made  with  us?  Let  us  know  what  amendments  will  be  accepted 
in  future.  I  am  most  anxious  to  carry  out  what  I  understood 
was  the  contemplated  policy  when  I  was  released  from  Kilmain- 


1883]  LABOUCHERE  AND  IRELAND  187 

ham,  and  to  work  with  the  Government  in  bringing  the  active 
phase  of  Irish  agitation  to  a  close.  But  this  I  cannot  do  if  I  am 
suspected  of  ulterior  objects,  and  if  I  cannot  show  that  something 
is  gained  for  my  party." 

He  then  suggested  that  if  the  Government  would  take  their 
November  Session  for  alterations  in  the  Land  Act,  he  would  do 
his  best  to  facilitate  business  now  in  regard  to  the  Crimes,  and 
the  Arrears  Bill,  and  the  Procedure  Resolutions,  provided  that 
the  majority  Resolution  were  maintained. 

I  asked  him  what  he  really  wanted  under  the  term  of  altera- 
tions in  the  Land  Act? 

He  said:  "To  go  back  to  the  system  of  reductions  in  rent 
which  was  acted  on  before  the  Stuart  Donleathcase,  and  to  extend 
the  Bright  clauses  in  the  sense  of  W.  H.  Smith's  resolution." 

Finally,  I  again  urged  him  to  remember  what  Mr.  Gladstone 
and  you  had  done  for  him  already,  and  to  see  whether  he  could 
not  manage  to  bring  the  Committee  Stage  of  the  Bill  to  an  end 
within  a  reasonable  time. 

On  Monday,  Sexton  proposes  to  cut  Chaplin  out  by  bringing 
forward  a  resolution  about  the  suspects.  Parnell  says  that  this 
is  absolutely  necessary,  because  he  and  his  friends  are  blamed  for 
only  caring  for  their  own  release.  But  Sexton  will  say  that  he 
only  does  this,  because  it  is  a  choice  between  his  resolution  and 
Chaplin's,  and  there  will  be  no  talking  to  hinder  the  Government 
from  getting  their  money,  or  with  the  object  of  obstructing. 

I  have  got  to  go  to  Northampton  on  Monday,  so  I  shall  not 
be  in  the  House  until  late. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

When  the  Crimes  Act  was  finally  passed,  Mr.  Labouchere 
expressed  himself  in  Truth  as  follows: 

When  Mr.  Parnell  was  released  from  Kilmainham,  it  was 
understood  that  the  Land  Act  would  be  amended,  that  evictions 
would  be  stopped  by  an  Arrears  Bill,  and  that  the  leaders  of  the 
land  movement  would  be  permitted  to  agitate  within  fair  legal 
limits  in  favour  of  the  political  and  social  changes  desired  by  their 
countrymen.  Had  this  understanding  been  carried  out,  the  breach 
between  the  Parnellites  and  the  Liberals  would  have  been  healed. 


188  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1881- 

Mr.  Forster  was  the  first  to  perceive  that  as  a  result  of  a  modus 
vivendi  he  would  have  to  disappear  with  his  policy  of  coercion.  He 
therefore  resigned,  in  the  hope  that  this  would  render  it  impossi- 
ble to  carry  out  the  Kilmainham  compact.  Then  followed  the 
murder  of  Lord  Frederick  Cavendish.  The  horror  which  this 
created  was  skilfully  used  by  the  Whigs  in  the  Cabinet,  and  they 
succeeded  in  promoting  a  Bill,  not  so  much  aimed  at  outrages  as 
at  the  Kilmainham  compact.  This  Bill  is  a  complete  codifica- 
tion of  arbitrary  rule.  It  places  the  lives,  liberties,  and  property 
of  the  Irish  in  the  hands  of  the  Executive,  and  seeks  to  suppress 
every  species  of  political  agitation. 

Unfortunately,  Mr.  Trevelyan  was  awaiting  his  re-election 
when  it  was  introduced,  and  it  was  left  to  Sir  William  Harcourt 
to  carry  it  through  the  House  of  Commons.  Of  course,  as  Sir 
William  is  the  head-centre  of  the  Whigs,  he  delighted  in  his  task. 
Not  only  did  he  refuse  every  modification  of  the  Bill,  except 
those  which  were  rendered  absolutely  necessary  by  the  absurd 
way  in  which  it  was  drawn,  but  almost  every  day  he  envenomed 
discussion  by  transpontine  outbursts  against  the  Irish  members. 
I  do  not  blame  him.  I  blame  no  one  who  plays  his  cards  to  his 
own  best  advantage.  This  is  human  nature.  Sir  William  knew 
that  if  the  English  Radicals  and  the  Irish  were  allied,  he  and  his 
Whigs  would  lose  all  influence,  whilst  of  Ireland  he  knew  ab- 
solutely nothing. 

The  result,  therefore,  has  been  that  the  Whigs  triumph,  and 
that  several  weeks  have  been  wasted  in  passing  a  Bill  which  will 
do  nothing  to  hinder  outrages,  but  which  will  simply  increase 
the  ill-feeling  between  England  and  Ireland. 

If  the  leaders  of  the  land  movement  are  wise,  they  will  not 
endeavour  to  hold  meetings.  They  should  declare  that  public 
meeting  has  been  rendered  impossible  by  the  Crimes  Act;  and 
they  should,  as  an  act  of  charity,  collect  funds  to  aid  all  who 
have  been  evicted,  no  matter  from  what  cause,  and  thus  band 
the  Irish  tenants  together  in  a  friendly  society.  At  the  same  time, 
they  should  devote  all  their  energies  to  increase  their  numbers  in 
the  next  Parliament,  and  they  should  submit  test  questions  to 
every  Liberal  standing  for  an  English  constituency  where  there 
are  Irish  voters,  and  make  these  votes  dependent  upon  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  questions  are  answered.  If  Mr.  Parnell  can 


1883]  LABOUCHERE  AND  IRELAND  189 

hold  the  balance  in  Parliament  between  the  rival  aspirants  for 
the  Treasury  Bench,  he  may  be  certain  that  any  just  demand 
that  he  may  make  will  be  granted.  The  democracy  of  England 
and  Ireland,  with  Mr.  Gladstone  at  their  head,  would  make  short 
work  of  Conservative  and  Whig  obstructive  trash.  The  land- 
lords in  Ireland  and  the  Whigs  in  England  stand  in  the  way  of 
peace  and  tranquillity  in  the  former  island,  and  of  mutual  good 
feeling  in  both.  * 

To  quote  Mr.  Labouchere's  views  on  Ireland  during  the 
dark  and  gloomy  period  which  followed  the  introduction  of 
the  Prevention  of  Crimes  Bill  is  to  quote  Mr.  Chamberlain's, 
for,  as  is  seen  by  their  constant  correspondence,  the  two 
were  one  in  their  views  on  Irish  discontent.  Mr.  Chamber- 
lain made  a  speech  at  Swansea  in  February,  1883,  in  which 
he  asked  his  audience  how  long  they  supposed  Englishmen 
with  their  free  institutions  would  tolerate  the  existence  of 
an  Irish  Poland  so  near  to  their  own  shores.  Was  separa- 
tion the  only  alternative?  He  thought  not.  Separation, 
in  his  opinion,  would  "jeopardise  the  security  of  this  country, 
and  would  be  fatal  to  the  prosperity  and  happiness  of  Ire- 
land." He,  like  Labouchere,  was  prepared  to  relax  the  bond, 
even  by  conceding  what  was  then  known  as  Home  Rule, 
which  would  not  include  an  independent  Parliament  or  a 
separate  executive.* 

However,  in  1883  and  1884,  Englishmen  had  other  things 
to  occupy  their  minds  than  the  rights  and  wrongs  of  Ireland. 
In  order  to  follow  the  political  career  of  Mr.  Labouchere 
we  must  for  a  time  leave  the  Irish  question  and  consider 
"the  policy  of  Gladstone's  Government  in  Egypt." 

«  Truth,  July  6,  1882.  »  S.  H.  Jeyes,  Mr.  Chamberlain. 


CHAPTER  IX 

LABOUCHERE  AND  MR.  GLADSTONE'S  EGYPTIAN 

POLICY 

T  ORD  MORLEY  has  commented  on  the  irony  of  fate 
J— '  which  imposed  on  Mr.  Gladstone  the  unwelcome  task 
of  Egyptian  occupation.  "It  was  one  of  the  ironies,"  he 
says,  "in  which  every  active  statesman's  life  abounds." 
Disparity  between  intentions  and  achievements  is  indeed 
inevitable  in  all  departments  of  activity,  but  nowhere  more 
so  than  in  cases  of  what  may  be  called  creative  policy. 
Destruction  is  easy.  But  a  constructive  policy  which  shall 
bring  about  a  new  and  more  favourable  state  of  things,  and 
may,  therefore,  in  this  sense  be  called  creative,  is  strangely 
apt  either  to  overshoot  its  mark  or  to  deviate  into  unex- 
pected channels,  with  results  wholly  unlocked  for  by  the 
statesman  responsible  for  its  conduct. 

Certainly  this  ironic  force  of  circumstances  was  pecul- 
iarly apparent  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  Egyptian 
policy.  The  problem  of  Egypt  was  not  of  his  seeking,  but 
was  a  legacy  from  the  Tories,  hi  1875  Disraeli,  against 
the  advice  of  Lord  Derby,  his  Foreign  Minister,  and  without 
consulting  the  other  members  of  his  Cabinet,  arranged  with 
the  London  Rothschilds  to  purchase  Khedive  Ismail's 
shares  in  the  Suez  Canal  for  four  millions  sterling.  Ismail, 
whose  absolute  reign  of  eighteen  years  had  cost  Egypt1  no 
less  a  sum  than  four  hundred  millions  sterling,  had  been 

1  Wilfrid  Scawen  Blunt,  Secret  History  of  the  English  Occupation  of  Egypt. 

190 


GLADSTONE'S  EGYPTIAN  POLICY  191 

driven  by  his  preposterous  extravagance,  and  the  consequent 
exhaustion  of  both  his  legitimate  and  illegitimate  methods 
of  procuring  revenue,  to  look  abroad  for  financial  assistance. 
France,  besides  being  crippled  by  the  war  of  1870,  was 
regarded  with  suspicion  in  the  matter  of  the  canal,  and  the 
only  alternative  to  France  was  England.  A  trifle  like  four 
millions  was  very  far  from  what  Ismail  really  required  to 
give  any  sort  of  financial  stability  to  his  government,  and, 
after  the  loan  with  Rothschild  had  been  negotiated,  the 
British  Cabinet  sent  out  a  series  of  commissioners  to  study 
the  state  of  affairs  on  the  spot,  and  to  see  what  could  be  done 
in  the  interests  of  Egyptian  rule  and,  incidentally,  of  the 
foreign  bondholders.  Eventually  a  settlement  of  Ismail's 
affairs,  known  as  the  Goschen-Joubert  arrangement,  was 
made,  by  which  the  enormous  yearly  payment  of  nearly 
seven  millions  sterling  was  charged  on  the  Egyptian  revenue. 
Greek  usurers  attended  the  tax-gatherers  on  their  rounds, 
and  the  ruined  fellaheen  were  forced  to  mortgage  their  lands 
to  meet  these  amazing  demands.  Even  such  methods  failed 
of  success  owing  to  the  famine  of  the  two  preceding  years. 
The  obviously  juster  course  was  now  to  let  Ismail  become 
bankrupt  and  abandon  the  Goschen-Joubert  arrangement, 
but  the  foreign  bondholders  were  naturally  opposed  to  this, 
and  pointed  out  reasonably  enough  that  the  English  Govern- 
ment had  guaranteed  the  loan.  The  moment  was  favour- 
able to  their  views.  Dizzy  had  succeeded  in  converting  his 
colleagues,  with  the  exception  of  Derby,  who  retired  and  was 
succeeded  by  Lord  Salisbury  as  Foreign  Secretary,  to  his 
neo- Imperialism  in  which  an  Asiatic  Empire  under  British 
rule  was  an  element.  About  this  time,  too,  the  secret  con- 
vention relating  to  the  lease  of  Cyprus  was  signed  with  the 
Porte.  When,  a  month  later,  the  Berlin  Congress  was 
called  together,  such  was  the  suspicion  with  which  the  pleni- 
potentiaries regarded  each  other  that  each  ambassador  was 
obliged,  before  entering  the  Congress,  to  affirm  that  he 
was  not  bound  by  any  secret  engagement  with  the  Porte. 


192  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

Disraeli  and  Salisbury  both  gave  the  required  declaration. 
"It  must  be  remembered,"  says  Mr.  Blunt  indulgently, 
"that  both  were  new  to  diplomacy."  A  few  weeks  later 
the  Globe  published  the  text  of  the  Cyprus  Convention, 
bought  by  that  journal  from  one  Marvin,  an  Oriental  scholar, 
who  had  been  imprudently  employed  as  translator  of  the 
Turkish  text.  In  London  the  authenticity  of  the  document 
was  denied,  but  the  truth  had  to  come  out  at  Berlin.  The 
discovery  almost  broke  up  the  Congress.  Prince  Gort- 
schakoff,  the  Russian  representative,  and  M.  Waddington, 
the  Ambassador  of  France,  both  announced  that  they  would 
withdraw  at  once  from  the  sittings,  and  Waddington  literally 
packed  his  trunks.  It  needed  the  cynical  good  offices  of 
Bismarck  to  reconcile  the  English  and  the  French  pleni- 
potentiaries.1 There  were  two  very  significant  points  on 
which  agreement  was  reached : 

i.  "That  as  a  compensation  to  France  for  England's 
acquisition  of  Cyprus,  France  should  be  allowed  on  the 
first  convenient  opportunity,  and  without  opposition  from 
England,  to  occupy  Tunis. 

1 1  have  taken  this  account  of  the  Cyprus  Convention  and  its  results  at  the 
Berlin  Congress  from  Mr.  Blunt's  Secret  History  of  the  English  Occupation  of 
Egypt.  He  says  in  a  footnote  (op.  cit.,  p.  277) :  "  I  have  given  the  story  of  the 
arrangement  made  with  Waddington  as  I  heard  it  first  from  Lord  Lytton  at 
Simla  in  May,  1879.  The  details  were  contained  in  a  letter  which  he  showed 
me  written  to  him  from  Berlin,  while  the  Congress  was  still  sitting,  by  a  former 
diplomatic  colleague,  and  have  since  been  confirmed  to  me  from  more  than  one 
quarter,  though  with  variations.  In  regard  to  the  main  feature  of  the  agree- 
ment, the  arrangement  about  Tunis,  I  had  it  very  plainly  stated  to  me  in  the 
autumn  of  1884  by  Count  Corti,  who  had  been  Italian  Ambassador  at  the 
Congress.  According  to  his  account,  the  shock  of  the  revelation  to  Disraeli 
had  been  so  great  that  he  took  to  his  bed,  and  for  four  days  did  not  appear  at 
the  sittings,  leaving  Lord  Salisbury  to  explain  matters  as  he  best  could.  He 
said  that  there  had  been  no  open  rupture  with  Waddington,  the  case  having 
been  submitted  by  Waddington  to  his  fellow-ambassadors,  who  agreed  that 
it  was  not  one  that  could  possibly  be  publicly  disputed :  //  faut  la  guerre  ou 
se  taire.  The  agreement  was  a  verbal  one  between  Waddington  and  Salis- 
bury, but  was  recorded  in  a  despatch  subsequently  written  by  the  French 
Ambassador  in  London  in  which  he  reminded  Salisbury  of  the  Convention 
conversation  held  in  Berlin,  and  so  secured  its  acknowledgment  in  writing." 


GLADSTONE'S  EGYPTIAN  POLICY  193 

2.  "That  in  the  financial  arrangements  being  made  in 
Egypt,  France  should  march  pari  passu  with  England." 

This  was  the  source  of  the  Anglo-French  condominium 
in  Egypt. 

Sir  Rivers  Wilson,  who  was  then  acting  in  Egypt  as 
English  Commissioner,  received  instructions  to  see  that 
France  should  be  equally  represented  with  England  in  all 
financial  appointments  made  in  connection  with  his  inquiry. 
Wilson's  appointment  as  English  Commissioner  on  the 
nominally  International  Commission  of  Inquiry  was  almost 
the  first  signed  by  Lord  Salisbury  on  taking  over  the  Foreign 
Office  from  Lord  Derby.  He  was  a  man  from  whom  much 
was  expected.  In  1878  he  was  appointed  Finance  Minister 
in  Egypt.  His  predecessor,  Ismail  Sadyk,  had  been  treacher- 
ously murdered  by  the  Khedive  Ismail,  but  this  fact  did  not 
dash  his  confidence.  He  had  great  faith  in  Nubar,  Ismail's 
Prime  Minister.  His  French  education  would,  he  thought, 
enable  him  to  preserve  the  Anglo-French  character  of  the 
Ministry.  He  also  had  behind  him  the  full  interest  and 
power  of  the  house  of  Rothschild,  whom  he  had  persuaded 
to  advance  the  loan  of  nine  millions,  known  as  the  Kedival 
Domains  Loan.  But  his  brief  career  as  Finance  Minister 
(the  Nubar  Ministry  was  overthrown  in  the  February  of 
1879)  was  a  failure.  It  is  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Blunt,  and  no 
one  would  have  been  more  likely  to  know  the  true  state  of 
affairs,  that  the  Khedive  himself  intrigued  against  him  and 
that  the  internal  policy  of  the  country  was  entirely  in  the 
hands  of  Nubar,  who,  as  a  Christian,  was  at  a  disadvantage 
in  governing  a  Mohammedan  country,  and  in  whose  political 
value  Wilson  seems  to  have  been  greatly  mistaken.  The 
loan  which  he  had  negotiated  did  not  relieve  the  taxpayer, 
but  went  in  paying  the  more  immediately  urgent  calls.  His 
suggestion  of  a  scheme  which  would  have  involved  the 
confiscation  by  the  Government  of  landed  property  to  the 
value  of  fifteen  millions  disturbed  the  minds  of  the  land- 
owners, and  the  mistakes  of  the  Ministry  reached  their 


194  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

climax  when  the  native  army,  including  2500  officers,  was 
disbanded  without  receiving  their  arrears  of  pay. 

The  fall  of  Nubar  was  brought  about  by  the  entente  of 
February,  1879,  skilfully  engineered  by  the  Khedive,  and 
Sir   Rivers's   position   as   Finance   Minister   became  very 
difficult.     The    Consul-General    Vivian    (afterwards    Lord 
Vivian)  was  a  personal  enemy  of  his  and  refrained  from 
smoothing  his  path,  and  when,  in  March,  the  crafty  Ismail 
arranged  a  little  incident  at  Alexandria  similar  to  that  of 
February,  the  Foreign  Office,  instead  of  backing  his  demand 
for  redress,  advised  him  to  resign,  which  he  accordingly  did. 
Soon,  however,  he  was  able  to  take  a  crushing  revenge  on  the 
perfidious  Ismail.    On  his  return  from  Egypt  he  went  straight 
to  the  Rothschilds  and  explained  to  them  that  their  money 
was  in  great  danger,  as  the  Khedive  intended  to  repudiate 
the  debt,  sheltering  himself  behind  the  excuse  of  constitu- 
tional government.     The  Rothschilds  brought  financial  pres- 
sure to  bear  first  on  Downing  Street  and  the  Quai  d'  Orsay. 
Their  efforts  in  these  quarters  being  in  vain,  they  applied 
to  Bismarck,  who  was,  perhaps,  not  sorry  to  have  an  ex- 
cuse to  state  the  intention  of  the  German  Government  to 
intervene  in  the  bondholders'  interests  in  case  the  French 
and  English  Governments  were  unable  to  do  so.     German 
intervention  would  have  been  a  quite  unendurable  solution, 
and  the  Sultan  was  at  once  approached  from  London  and 
Paris  and  begged  to  depose  his  vassal.    European  pressure 
was  too  much  for  him,  and,  in  spite  of  the  many  millions 
which  he  had  paid  in  bribery  to  the  Porte,  Ismail  received 
a  curt  notice  from  Sir  Frank  Lascelles,  then  acting  English 
diplomatic  agent  in  Egypt,  that  a  telegram  had  reached 
him  from  the  Sultan  announcing  that  his  viceregal  duties 
had  passed  to  his  son  Tewfik.     Ismail  cleared  the  treasury 
of  its  current  account  and  retired  with  a  final  spoil  of  some 
three  millions  sterling.     No  one  hindered  his  departure. 

For  a  few  months  after  Mr.  Gladstone  formed  his  second 
administration   things   seemed   to   have   quieted   down   in 


GLADSTONE'S  EGYPTIAN  POLICY  195 

Egypt.  The  new  Khedive  was  a  weak  character  and  the 
country  was  practically  governed  by  French  and  English 
Ministers  in  the  Cabinet.  Sir  Evelyn  Baring  (afterwards 
Lord  Cromer)  and  M.  de  Blaquieres  worked  together  in 
perfect  harmony.  Sir  Evelyn  Baring  had  originally  come 
to  Egypt  as  Commissioner  of  the  Debt,  and  had  worked  so 
successfully  towards  a  new  settlement  that  when  the  ques- 
tion of  the  appointment  of  an  English  controller  to  advise 
the  Khedive's  Ministers  arose,  he  was  the  person  naturally 
indicated  for  the  post.  "Thus,"  as  he  says,  "the  various 
essential  parts  of  the  State  machine  were  adjusted.  A 
new  Khedive  ruled.  The  relations  between  the  Khedive 
and  his  Ministers  were  placed  on  a  satisfactory  footing.  A 
Prime  Minister  (Riaz  Pasha)  had  been  nominated  who  had 
taken  an  active  part  in  opposing  the  abuses  prevalent  dur- 
ing the  reign  of  Ismail  Pasha.  The  relations  between  the 
Sultan  and  the  Khedive  had  been  regulated  in  such  a  way 
as  to  ensure  the  latter  against  any  excessive  degree  of  Turkish 
interference.  The  system  which  had  been  devised  for 
associating  Europeans  with  the  Government  held  out  good 
promise  of  success,  inasmuch  as  it  was  in  accordance  with 
the  Khedive's  own  views.  Lastly,  an  International  Com- 
mission had  been  created  with  full  powers  to  arrange  matters 
between  the  Egyptian  Government  and  their  creditors."1 
But,  suddenly,  as  it  seemed  to  those  who  had  not  been 
watching  events  on  the  spot,  across  this  peaceful  sky  flashed 
the  red  meteor  of  rebellion,  massacre,  and  arson. 

It  is  no  easy  matter  to  estimate  the  character  of  Arabi 
Pasha.  He  seems,  from  even  so  friendly  an  account  as  that 
of  Mr.  Wilfrid  Blunt,  not  to  have  been  particularly  intelligent 
or  particularly  brave.  It  appears  likely  that  he,  at  least, 
connived  at  the  burning  and  loot  of  Alexandria.  All  this, 
however,  would  not  have  prevented  his  being  a  true  patriot 
according  to  his  lights.  As  Mr.  Herbert  Paul  observes: 
"How  far  Arabi  was  a  mutinous  soldier  guided  by  personal 

1  Herbert  Paul,  A  History  of  Modern  England,  vol.  iv.,  p.  247. 


196  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

ambition  and  how  far  he  was  an  enthusiastic  patriot  burning 
to  free  his  country  from  a  foreign  yoke,  would  admit  of  an 
easier  answer  if  one  alternative  excluded  the  other."1  One 
thing,  however,  is  certain.  The  movement  he  led  was  far 
more  than  the  merely  military  revolt  which  Mr.  Gladstone 
and  everyone  in  England  at  first  thought  it;  it  was  in  fact 
a  genuine  Nationalist  movement  directed  rather  against 
the  alien  Turk  than  against  the  alien  Englishman.  That 
the  truth  of  this  is  now  generally  admitted  is  principally  due 
to  Mr.  Blunt  and  in  a  lesser  degree  to  Mr.  Labouchere  and 
the  group  of  extreme  Radicals  of  which  he  was  already 
beginning  to  be  the  unofficial  leader  in  Parliament.  During 
the  spring  and  summer  of  1882,  Mr.  Labouchere's  first 
observations  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  Egyptian  affairs 
were  of  a  thoroughly  orthodox  nature.  On  May  12  we 
find  him  asking  the  Under-Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs  (Sir 
Charles  Dilke)  "whether  any  steps  are  being  taken  by  Her 
Majesty's  Government  in  view  of  the  critical  state  of  affairs 
in  Egypt  to  maintain  our  influence  in  that  country."2  On 
July  27  he  replies  in  a  vein  at  once  serious  and  sarcastic  to 
Mr.  McCarthy,  who  had  made  a  speech  in  Arabi's  favour. 
He  thought  that  Mr.  McCarthy  had  drawn  on  his  imagina- 
tion for  the  character  of  Arabi  Pasha.  They  knew  perfectly 
well  that  the  most  eminent  men  in  the  world  were  frequently 
great  patriots ;  and  they  also  knew  that  military  adventurers 
always  called  themselves  patriots  in  order  to  advance  their 
own  ends.  They  knew  little  of  the  career  of  Arabi  Pasha, 
but  they  did  know  that  he  had  designedly  massacred  Euro- 
peans in  Alexandria,  and  had  deliberately  burnt  down  one 
of  the  noblest  cities  of  his  native  land.  What  would  be  the 
effect  of  the  vote3  they  proposed  to  give  if  it  were  successful? 
The  English  nation  would  have  to  withdraw  entirely  from 
their  present  position  in  Egypt,  and  the  result  would  be  that 

1  Herbert  Paul,  A  History  of  Modern  England,  vol.  iv.,  p.  247. 

1  Hansard,  May  12,  1882,  vol.  269. 

»Vote  of  credit  for  forces  in  the  Mediterranean. 


GLADSTONE'S  EGYPTIAN  POLICY  197 

we  should  have  behaved  in  a  contemptible  manner  in  the 
face  of  Europe.  India  would  not  be  worth  one  year's  pur- 
chase. He  was  not  a  great  believer  in  prestige;  but  if  we 
were  to  retire  after  our  men  had  been  massacred  our  Empire 
in  the  East  would  not  be  worth  a  year's  purchase.  This 
speech,  occupying  eight  columns  of  Hansard,  aims  at  cutting 
away  the  relations  between  England  and  Turkey  (which 
shows  that  even  at  so  early  a  date  Mr.  Labouchere  realised 
something  of  the  true  nature  of  the  grievance  of  the  Egyptian 
Nationalists)  and  upholding  British  intervention.1  Labby 
among  the  prophets  indeed! 

After  the  retirement  of  Arabi  from  Alexandria,  he  issued 
a  proclamation  stating  that  "irreconcilable  war  existed 
between  the  Egyptians  and  the  English,  and  all  those  who 
proved  traitors  to  their  country  would  not  only  be  subjected 
to  the  severest  penalty  in  accordance  with  martial  law,  but 
would  be  for  ever  accursed  in  the  next  world."  Three  more 
towns  were  plundered  and  the  European  inhabitants  mas- 
sacred. British  public  opinion  was  now  thoroughly  aroused, 
and  probably  no  Government  could  have  stayed  in  power 
without  taking  some  overt  action.  The  action  taken  by 
Mr.  Gladstone's  Government  was  very  definite.  On  July 
22  the  Prime  Minister  obtained,  by  a  majority  of  275  to  19, 
a  vote  of  £2,300,000.  A  force  of  6000  men  was  sent  to  Egypt 
from  India;  15,000  men  were  despatched  to  Cyprus  and 
Malta.  Sir  Garnet  (afterwards  Viscount)  Wolseley  was 
placed  in  command  in  Egypt,  "in  support  of  the  authority 
of  His  Highness  the  Khedive,  as  established  by  the  Firmans 
of  the  Sultan  and  the  existing  international  engagements,  to 
suppress  a  military  revolt  in  that  country." 

The  French  Government,  while  declining  to  co-operate 
with  the  British  troops,  assured  Lord  Granville  of  their  moral 
support.  In  the  month  of  September  the  battle  of  Tel-el- 
Kebir,  in  which  the  Egyptian  army  was  completely  routed, 
was  fought.  By  this  event  British  intervention  was  justified 

1  Hansard,  July  27,  1882,  vol.  272. 


198  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  and  what  became  in  the  long  run 
hardly  distinguishable  from  British  rule  was  established  on 
the  banks  of  the  Nile.  It  was  the  battle  of  Tel-el- Kebir  that 
convinced  Mr.  Labouchere  of  what  would  be,  and  in  fact  what 
came  to  be,  the  end  of  the  course  on  which  the  Government 
was  embarked,  for  he  very  soon  sold  his  Egyptian  shares. 
"They  fell  off  his  back  like  Christian's  burden  in  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  and  Labby  became  an  honest  politician,"  said  Mr. 
Wilfrid  Blunt  to  me.  The  following  letter  to  Sir  Charles  Dilke 
very  clearly  expresses  his  new  views  on  Egyptian  policy : 

REFORM  CLUB,  October  10,  1882. 

DEAR  DILKE, — The  great  ones  of  the  earth  who,  like  you, 
live  in  Government  Offices,  never  really  understand  the  bent  of 
public  opinion.  This  is  probably  a  dispensation  of  Providence 
by  means  of  which  Ministers  are  not  eternal. 

Personally,  I  should  be  glad  to  see  the  Liberal  Party,  after 
passing  a  Franchise  Bill,  sent  about  their  business,  and  the 
country  divided  between  Conservatives  and  Radicals.  I  speak, 
therefore,  from  the  Radical  standpoint,  and  viewing  the  matter 
from  that  point,  I  see  that  the  dissatisfaction  against  your 
Egyptian  policy  is  growing. 

Arabi  (like  most  patriots)  was  "on  the  make."  His  force 
consisted  in  siding  with  the  Notables  in  their  legitimate  demands. 

Now  that  the  war  is  over,  it  is  really  impossible  for  Radicals 
to  accept  a  policy  based  upon  administering  Egypt,  partly  for 
the  good  of  its  inhabitants,  but  mainly  for  the  good  of  the  bond- 
holders. I  am  a  bondholder,  so  it  cannot  be  said  that  I  am  per- 
sonally prejudiced  against  such  a  policy.  But  I  am  sure  that  it 
will  not  go  down,  and  indeed  that  our  whole  course  of  action  has 
been  so  tainted  with  it,  that  there  will  be  great  disaffection  in 
the  Radical  ranks  throughout  the  country  unless  the  tree  be  now 
made  to  bend  the  other  way. 

You  are  now  the  man  in  possession  in  Egypt,  so  you  can  make 
terms  with  Europe.  I  would  therefore  humbly  suggest  that  you 
should,  after  insisting  upon  an  amnesty,  call  together  the  Notables 
and  hand  the  country  over  to  them,  stipulating  alone  that  there 
should  be  Ministerial  responsibility,  and  the  control  of  the  purse. 


GLADSTONE'S  EGYPTIAN  POLICY  199 

The  International  Obligation  of  Egypt  to  pay  its  bondholders 
was  bon  d  professer,  when  the  Expedition  had  to  be  defended, 
but  it  is  in  reality  a  pure  fiction.  Moreover,  if  it  were  not,  we 
cannot  decently  join  in  a  holy  alliance  to  maintain  Khedives, 
and  to  deprive  nations  of  what  is  the  very  basis  of  representative 
government. 

Having  handed  Egypt  over  to  the  Notables,  you  can  then 
go  before  Europe  with  a  clean  bill  of  health — propose  that  the 
connection  of  the  country  with  Turkey  shall  be  a  purely  nominal 
one  and  that,  henceforward,  no  European  power  shall  directly 
or  indirectly  interfere  with  its  internal  affairs. 

At  the  same  time,  you  ought  to  take  advantage  of  your  being 
in  Egypt  to  establish  yourself  in  some  vantage  post  on  the  Suez 
Canal.  This  once  done,  Egypt  separated  from  Turkey,  and  all 
European  powers  warned  off,  we  remain  in  reality  absolute 
masters  of  the  position.  Very  probably  the  Egyptians  will 
make  a  muddle  of  these  finances,  but  this  will  no  more  affect 
us  than  the  mistakes  of  Spanish  finances  affect  our  tenure  of 
Gibraltar. 

Controllers,  a  swarm  of  foreign  bureaucrats,  European  ad- 
ministrators, Khedives  ruling  against  the  wishes  of  their  subjects, 
an  English  army  of  occupation  or  an  army  commanded  by  my 
esteemed  friend,  Baker,  composed  of  black  ex-slaves,  Ottoman 
cut-throats,  and  Swiss  cowboys,  are  abominations,  only  equal 
to  that  of  concerning  ourselves  with  the  payment  of  interest  on 
a  public  debt.  To  attempt  these  things  will  be  to  keep  open  a 
perpetual  Radical  sore,  and  in  the  end  will  only  land  us  in  another 
expedition. 

Pray  excuse  the  observations  of  a  humble  admirer.  The 
Jingoes,  it  is  true,  are  not  so  hostile  as  they  were,  but  you  do  not 
suppose  that  they  would  vote  for  the  present  Government,  whilst 
on  the  other  hand  the  Radicals  will  sulk  and  not  vote  so  long  as 
Radical  principles  are  ignored  in  Egypt.  Government  has  not 
yet  announced  its  policy,  so  at  present  no  great  harm  is  done, 
but  the  appointment  of  Baker,  the  handing  over  of  Arabi  to  the 
Khedive,  the  reign  of  Generals  and  diplomatists,  the  absence  of 
any  appearance  of  consulting  the  Egyptians,  and  various  other 
similar  things  are  producing  distrust.  You  will  say,  "What 
can  a  fellah  know  of  politics?"  To  this  I  can  only  answer, 


200  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

"What  does  a  Wiltshire  peasant  know  about  them?" — Yours 
truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  soon  began  to  put  forward  his  reformed 
views  in  Parliament.  On  October  30  we  find  him  asking 
Sir  Charles  Dilke  whether  "Her  Majesty's  Government  is 
a  party  to  any  treaty,  alliance,  or  compact  with  any  foreign 
power  which  would  oblige  it  to  prevent  the  Egyptians  from 
exercising  that  control  over  their  taxation,  expenditure,  and 
administration  which  is  enjoyed  by  the  inhabitants  of  the 
independent  or  semi-independent  States  which  formerly 
were  integral  parts  of  the  Ottoman  Empire," x  and  demanding 
information  as  to  the  cruelty  and  insults  to  which  it  was 
alleged  the  Egyptian  prisoners  had  been  subjected.  Mr. 
Labouchere  wrote  a  long  article  in  Truth  under  the  heading: 
"Egypt  was  glad  when  they  departed"  (Psalm  cv.,  38),  the 
following  extracts  from  which  put  the  situation  very  clearly 
as  he  conceived  it. 

That  a  small  body  of  English  troops  should  remain  for  a  brief 
time  in  Egypt  at  the  expense  of  that  country  is,  perhaps,  a  neces- 
sity of  the  position.  But  what  I  contend  is,  that  during  their 
stay  the  Notables  ought  to  be  called  together,  that  every  place 
of  emolument  ought  to  be  filled  up  by  an  Egyptian,  that  the  bag 
and  baggage  policy  ought  to  be  adopted  towards  the  Turkish 
officials,  who  are  as  objectionable  to  the  natives  as  were  the 
Turkish  officials  to  the  Bulgarians,  and  that  a  free  constitutional 
government  ought  to  be  established,  based  on  the  two  corner 
stones  of  all  constitutional  liberty — Ministerial  responsibility 
and  the  right  of  taxpayers  over  the  purse.  In  order  to  carry  out 
this  programme — distasteful  alike  to  professional  diplomatists 
and  to  professional  soldiers — we  ought  at  once  to  send  to  Egypt 
a  stalwart  and  experienced  Liberal,  who  has  graduated  in  the 
school  of  Parliamentary  Government,  and  not  in  those  of  the 
Horse  Guards,  of  the  Foreign  Office,  or  of  the  India  Office.  Look- 
ing round,  I  see  no  man  better  able  to  fill  the  post  than  Mr.  Shaw 

^Hansard,  October  30,  1882,  vol.  274. 


GLADSTONE'S  EGYPTIAN  POLICY  201 

Lefevre.  He  is  able,  he  is  a  skilled  and  successful  administrator, 
he  is  untainted  with  the  creed  that  all  Orientals  are  made  to  be 
bondsmen  for  Europeans,  and  his  political  principles  are  excep- 
tionally sound. 

What  our  diplomacy  has  to  do  is,  to  discover  some  means  to 
render  the  high  road  to  India  through  the  Canal  secure.  Obvi- 
ously we  cannot  do  in  this  matter  precisely  as  we  should  like, 
which  would  be  to  say  that  in  time  of  peace  all  war  vessels  miy 
pass  through  the  Canal,  and  in  time  of  war  only  ours.  I  hardly 
see  how  we  can  go  beyond  making  the  passage  neutral  in  times 
of  peace,  and  excluding  from  it  in  times  of  war  the  ships  of  belli- 
gerents. If  Egypt  were  left  to  herself,  I  believe  that  she  could 
very  safely  be  left  in  charge  of  the  Canal.  Her  people  would  be 
glad  to  be  clear  of  all  European  complications,  and,  in  case  of 
war,  she  would  occupy  Port  Said,  and  notify  belligerents  that 
their  ships  would  not  be  allowed  to  pass." 

On  the  question  of  India  he  expressed  himself  thus  : 

I  am  not  at  all  of  the  "Perish  India"  school  of  politics.  If 
it  could  be  proved  that  our  Empire  would  perish  if  we  did  not 
establish  ourselves  in  Egypt,  I  am  by  no  means  certain  but  what 
I  should  be  in  favour  of  our  establishment.  But  I  am  a  believer 
not  only  in  the  justice,  but  in  the  expediency  of  an  alliance  with 
the  people  of  a  country,  and  not  with  its  ruler  against  the  people. 
Any  intermixture  in  the  internal  affairs  of  Egypt  on  our  part  is 
not  only  opposed  to  Liberal  principles,  but  opposed  to  English 
interests.  To  what  has  it  already  led  ?  To  a  most  costly  military 
expedition;  to  our  being  arrayed  against  rights  without  which 
there  can  be  no  true  liberty  or  sound  government ;  to  the  slaughter 
of  Englishmen  and  Egyptians  with  all  the  "pomp  and  pride  of 
glorious  war";  and  lastly  to  our  soldiers  acting  as  retrievers,  to 
hunt  down  and  handover  to  punishment  to  an  Ottoman  potentate, 
men  many  of  whom — whether  they  were  ambitious  and  whether 
they  were  ill-advised — had  unquestionably  a  perfect  right  to 
fight  in  support  of  the  principle  that  the  only  authority  of  their 
nation  ought  to  be  its  representatives.  * 

1  Truth,  October  5,  1882. 


202  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

A  correspondent  at  once  asked  him:  "How  is  it  that  you 
were  in  favour  of  the  control  and  in  favour  of  the  Expedi- 
tion, and  yet  now  tell  your  readers  that  the  control  ought  to 
cease,  and  that  having  by  means  of  the  Expedition  estab- 
lished a  firm  foothold  in  Egypt,  our  next  step  ought  to  be 
to  evacuate  the  country?"  The  following  number  of  Truth 
delivered  itself  in  reply  as  follows : 

The  Control,  when  first  established,  simply  meant  that 
Egypt  should  go  into  liquidation,  and  pay  so  much  in  the  pound 
to  its  creditors,  a  couple  of  European  controllers  with  half  a 
dozen  clerks,  being  appointed  by  the  Egyptian  Government  to 
receive  the  composition  from  the  Egyptian  Treasury,  and  to 
hand  it  over  to  the  various  classes  of  bondholders.  To  this  there 
could  have  been  no  sort  of  objection ;  but,  little  by  little,  this  sim- 
ple and  semi-private  arrangement  was  converted  into  a  so-called 
international  obligation  on  the  part  of  the  Egyptians  to  remain 
eternally  divested  from  all  control  over  their  own  expenditure, 
and  to  allow  their  entire  financial  administration  to  be  placed  in 
the  hands  of  about  1300  Europeans,  with  salaries  amounting  to 
nearly  £400,000  per  annum,  whilst  the  Controllers  themselves 
had  seats  in  the  Cabinet,  with  a  veto  upon  everything  proposed 
by  their  Egyptian  colleagues.  France  and  England  were  the 
executive  officers  of  this  scheme.  If  the  Egyptian  officers  had 
assented  to  it,  nothing  further  was  to  be  said,  except  that  they 
were  singularly  and  curiously  wanting  in  patriotism.  However 
we  find  now  that  they  did  not,  and  that  we  have  been  under  an 
illusion.  The  Notables  and  the  entire  country  were — to  their 
credit  be  it  said — opposed  to  it.  Arabi  took  advantage  of  this 
feeling.  He  sided  with  the  country,  and  at  the  same  time  made 
his  bargain.  "I,"  he  practically  said  to  the  Notables,  "support 
you  in  your  rights;  as  a  quid  pro  quo  you  must  support  me  in 
what  I  am  pleased  to  call  the  rights  of  the  army — that  is  to  say, 
that  it  shall  be  increased  by  18,000  men."  Without  the  army 
the  Notables  were  powerless;  they  accordingly  accepted  the 
terms.  We  therefore  find  ourselves  in  the  position  that  we  were 
fully  justified  in  asserting  that  Arabi  was  a  self-seeking  military 
adventurer,  but  that  he  was  also  the  exponent  of  the  legitimate 


GLADSTONE'S  EGYPTIAN  POLICY  203 

demands  of  the  Egyptian  people.  The  Control  had  become  po- 
litical— it  was  no  longer  a  reasonable  financial  arrangement,  but 
an  unreasonable  and  improper  attempt  to  deprive  the  Egyptians 
of  their  rights,  in  order  to  secure  high  salaries  for  a  swarm  of 
European  locusts,  and  certainty  of  interest  to  European  bond- 
holders. Those,  therefore,  who  had  regarded  it  in  its  natural 
original  conception,  as  fair  and  useful,  have  a  perfect  right  to 
assert  that  this  original  conception  had  been  so  perverted  that 
it  had  become  a  monstrous  instrument  for  the  suppression  of  all 
national  vitality. 

We,  however,  were  tied  to  France.  If  we  had  not  interfered, 
France  probably  would  have  done  so.  Moreover,  we  foolishly 
had  pledged  ourselves  to  maintain  the  Khedive  in  his  position. 
The  only  way,  therefore,  to  get  out  of  the  complication  was  to 
cut  the  Gordian  knot;  but,  in  order  to  do  this,  we  were  neces- 
sarily obliged  to  adopt  the  theory  that  Arabi  was  a  mere  military 
adventurer,  who  was  attempting  for  his  own  ends  to  coerce  not 
only  the  Khedive  but  the  Egyptian  people. 

Our  expedition,  as  was  to  be  anticipated,  has  proved  success- 
ful. Our  troops  hold  Egypt.  What  then  ought  we  to  do? 
Obviously  to  hand  it  over  to  the  Notables,  who  are  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Egyptian  people,  and  to  inform  these  Notables 
that  we  have  no  intention  of  repeating  our  previous  error,  but 
that,  experience  having  shown  us  the  fatal  results  of  allowing 
ourselves  little  by  little  to  be  dragged  into  an  attempt  to  manage 
other  people's  finances  with  a  view  to  public  creditors  being  paid 
interest,  we  shall  leave  Egypt  and  Egypt's  creditors  to  settle 
their  conflicting  interests  as  they  best  please.  This  is  the  logical 
consequence  of  our  having  acted  upon  the  assumption  that  Arabi 
was  terrorising  the  Egyptians.  .  .  . 

It  is  evident  to  me,  therefore,  that  the  only  policy  which  an 
English  Liberal  Ministry  can  adopt  is  to  go  before  Europe  with 
a  proposal  to  make  Egypt  an  Eastern  Belgium,  and  to  base  our 
suggestion  upon  our  own  renunciation  of  interference  in  its 
internal  affairs.  I  hear  it  said  that  the  Liberal  party  is  popular 
owing  to  its  successes  in  Egypt.  It  may,  perhaps,  be  for  the 
nonce  popular — or,  to  put  it  more  correctly,  not  quite  so  un- 
popular— as  it  was  with  Jingoes,  but  these  same  Jingoes  will  not 
cease  to  vote  for  Conservatives. 


204  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

How  then  about  the  Canal?  Well,  I  should  base  my  policy 
upon  that  pursued  in  like  cases  by  the  United  States.  I  should 
explain  to  Europe  that  the  Canal  is  the  connecting  link  between 
Great  Britain  and  India,  and  that  consequently  the  exigencies 
of  geography  and  an  enlightened  self-interest  render  it  absolutely 
necessary  for  us  to  be  paramount  there.  There  might  be  a  little 
grumbling,  but  no  one  would  go  to  war  to  hinder  this,  because 
its  plain  common-sense  would  be  too  obvious. x 

In  the  meantime  Arabi  was  lying  in  prison  at  Cairo 
awaiting  his  trial,  and  Mr.  Labouchere  took  up  his  case 
energetically  in  the  House  of  Commons.  A  military  tri- 
bunal was  to  be  charged  with  the  trial,  and  it  was  no  secret 
that  the  Khedive  was  determined  that  the  death  penalty 
should  be  inflicted  on  the  heads  of  the  rebellion.  Mr. 
Wilfrid  Blunt  wrote,  on  September  I,  a  long  letter  to  Mr. 
Gladstone,  stating  his  intention  of  providing  Arabi  with  an 
English  counsel  at  his  own  expense  and  that  of  his  friends, 
and  hoping  that  "every  facility  will  be  afforded  me  and 
those  with  me  in  Egypt  to  prosecute  our  task."  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, who  was  deeply  hostile  to  Arabi,  replied  through  his 
secretary,  that  "all  that  he  can  say  at  the  present  moment 
is  that  he  will  bring  your  request  before  Lord  Granville, 
with  whom  he  will  consult,  but  that  he  cannot  hold  out  any 
assurance  that  it  will  be  complied  with." 

Mr.  Labouchere  continued  to  enquire  into  the  Govern- 
ment's intentions  towards  Arabi  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
A  timely  question  on  October  31  to  Sir  Charles  Dilke  secured 
the  intervention  of  the  press  at  the  trial,  and  further  ques- 
tions on  the  following  days  forestalled  the  attempts  of  the 
Khedive  to  wriggle  out  of  the  conditions  that  Mr.  Blunt's 
advocate  had  obtained  from  Mr.  Gladstone.  Arabi  was, 
on  December  4,  condemned  to  death,  and  in  spite  of  Mr. 
Gladstone's  being  at  first  inclined  to  let  the  law  take  its 
course,  the  sentence  was  commuted  to  banishment  to  Ceylon. 
Mr.  Labouchere  commented  in  Truth  as  follows:  "The  farce 

1  Truth,  October  12,  1882. 


GLADSTONE'S  EGYPTIAN  POLICY  205 

of  the  rebel's  condemnation  to  exile  with  retention  of  his 
rank  and  with  a  handsome  allowance,  is  a  fitting  conclusion 
to  the  trial.  I  see  it  stated  that  Arabi  will  be  invited  to  take 
up  his  residence  in  this  or  that  portion  of  British  territory. 
It  need  hardly  be  said  that  he  may  reside  in  any  part  of  the 
world,  outside  Egypt,  that  he  pleases.  There  is  no «.  -isting 
law  which  enables  us  to  detain  an  Egyptian  in  deference  to  the 
wishes  of  an  Egyptian  Khedive;  and  it  is  not  likely  that  we 
shall  ever  consent  to  convert  any  portion  of  our  territory  into 
an  international  gaol,  where  all  who  are  in  disfavour  with  for- 
eign rulers  are  to  be  deported,  and  restrained  in  their  liberty. ' ' f 

When  Parliament  met  after  Christmas,  Mr.  Labouchere 
seconded  Sir  Wilfrid  Lawson's  amendment  to  the  Reply 
to  the  Speech  from  the  Throne  to  the  effect  that  no  sufficient 
reason  had  been  shown  for  the  employment  of  British  forces 
in  reconstituting  the  Government  of  Egypt.  It  was  certain, 
he  said,  that  Arabi  was  supported  by  the  entire  Egyptian 
nation.  He  could  quite  understand  why  the  Opposition 
did  not  challenge  the  policy  of  the  Government.  The 
Government  were  practically  dragged  into  the  war  by  the 
acts  of  the  Opposition  when  in  power.  Anyone  who  read 
the  Blue  Books  must  see  that.  A  great  many  Liberals  and 
all  the  Radicals  in  the  country  regretted  the  Government 
plunging  into  the  war.  There  could  be  no  doubt  that  it 
was  entered  into  for  the  sake  of  the  bondholders  and  for 
that  reason  only.  We  were  going  to  place  the  Egyptian 
army  under  an  English  General  and  a  financier  at  the  side 
of  the  Khedive,  and  then  tell  Europe  that  the  Khedive  was 
an  independent  ruler  and  that  we  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  Government  of  Egypt.  Why  were  we  there?  For  the 
single  object  of  collecting  the  debts  of  the  bondholders. a 

He  wrote  to  Mr.  Chamberlain  on  January  9,  1883: 

You  people  do  not  seem  to  have  a  very  clear  policy  in  Egypt. 
I  cannot  understand  why  you  do  not  settle  the  French  by  adopt- 

1  Truth,  December  7,  1882.          » Hansard,  February  15,  1883,  vol.  276. 


206  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

ing  the  line  of  "Egypt  for  the  Egyptians"  and  convert  the  coun- 
try into  a  sort  of  Belgium.     If  you  can  establish  the  principle 
that  no  one  is  to  interfere,  you  have  got  all  that  you  want. 
To  do  this  only  two  things  are  necessary : 

1.  Fair  Courts  of  Justice  where   "meum  and  tuum"   is 
recognised. 

2.  A  Representative  Assembly  with  a  right  to  vote  the 
Budget. 

As  regards  the  debt  there  are  three  loans,  secured  by  special 
mortgages;  two  on  land,  and  one  on  the  railroads.  Let  the 
mortgagees  take  these  securities,  when  the  loans  would  be  con- 
verted into  companies,  and  the  interest  on  them  not  be  dependent 
upon  any  political  arrangement.  Rothschild  has  always  told 
me  that  the  domains,  on  which  his  loan  of  £400,000,000  is  secured, 
are  worth  £400,500,000.  By  handing  over  to  him  the  security, 
£500,000  would  therefore  be  obtained. 

As  regards  the  General  Debt  (the  United) ,  it  is  a  swindle,  but 
without  going  into  this  it  might  be  regarded  as  the  general  debt 
of  the  country,  and  the  Egyptians,  like  any  other  nation,  would 
be  left  to  pay  or  not  as  they  pleased. 

The  main  swindle  of  the  Goschen-Rivers- Wilson  scheme  was 
that  the  fellahs  had  paid  £17,000,000  to  free  the  land  from  a 
portion  of  the  land  tax  after  1886.  The  law  which  partially 
liberated  the  land  was  abrogated,  and,  instead  of  the  fellahs 
being  treated  like  bondholders,  although  they  had  paid  cash, 
whereas  the  latter  had  really  paid  about  20%  on  the  value  of  the 
bonds,  they  were  told  that  as  a  quid  pro  quo  they  would  receive 
i%  on  their  £17,000,000  for  fifty  years.  The  Canal  question 
is  nonsense.  If  we  hold  the  Red  Sea  we  hold  the  Canal,  in  the 
sense  that  we  can  stop  all  traffic.  If  we  are  at  war  with  a  mari- 
time power,  either  we  should  have  the  command  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean or  we  should  not.  In  the  latter  case,  we  should  still  by 
our  hold  on  the  Red  Sea  be  able  to  close  the  Canal ;  in  the  former 
case  we  should  be  able  not  only  to  close  it  to  others,  but  to  use 
it  for  our  own  powers.  Protocols  and  treaties  are  waste  paper, 
they  never  hold  against  the  exigencies  of  a  belligerent;  and,  if 
we  were  at  war  with  one  maritime  power,  we  should  not  have 
the  others  interfering  to  maintain  our  treaty  rights,  for,  differing 
on  many  things,  all  continental  powers  regard  us  as  the  bullies 


GLADSTONE'S  EGYPTIAN  POLICY  207 

of  the  ocean.  An  English  garrison  at  Port  Said  is  a  reality;  as 
we  are  not  likely  to  have  one  there,  our  best  plan  is  to  leave 
things  alone,  and,  in  the  event  of  a  serious  maritime  war,  at  once 
to  occupy  Port  Said. 


The  interests  of  the  Egyptian  exiles  also  claimed  Mr. 
Labouchere's  attention.  We  find  him  in  March  putting 
searching  questions  as  to  their  precise  legal  status,  demand- 
ing satisfactory  evidence  of  their  support  being  adequately 
provided  for,  and  enquiring  why  the  Egyptian  Government 
had  unlawfully  deprived  Arabi  of  his  title  of  Pasha. 

In  the  debate  of  March  2  on  a  supplementary  estimate 
of  £728,000  "for  additional  expenditure  for  army  services 
consequent  on  the  dispatch  of  an  expeditionary  force  to 
Egypt, "  he  spoke  with  his  accustomed  frankness.  He  would 
like  to  know  where  the  money  was  to  come  from.  He  had 
seen  it  stated  in  the  papers  and  other  organs  that  it  was  to 
be  raised  by  an  increase  on  the  Income  Tax.  For  his  part, 
he  should  like  to  see  it  raised  in  one  of  two  ways — one,  by 
raising  it  from  the  landed  interest — or,  since  he  was  afraid 
the  Government  would  not  accept  that  plan — in  default, 
by  a  general  tax  on  every  individual  in  the  country  poor  or 
rich.  Let  every  one  of  those  shrieking  Jingoes  who  went  out 
calling  on  the  Government  to  go  to  war,  now  here  and  now 
there,  understand  that  they  would  have  to  pay  for  the  cost 
of  those  wars.  Then  he  thought  they  would  be  less  inclined 
than  now  to  advance  the  Jingo  policy  which  he  was  sorry  to 
see  had  been  adopted  by  the  Government,  and  which  they 
had  inherited  from  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  of  the  House. 
He  believed  that  the  war  had  been  a  mistake  all  through. 
If  we  went  to  Egypt  at  all  we  ought  to  have  installed  Arabi 
instead  of  the  Khedive.  He  believed  that  as  long  as  British 
troops  supported  the  Khedive  and  supported  him  against 
his  own  subjects,  England  was  absolutely  responsible  for 
what  was  going  on  in  Egypt.  No  doubt  Lord  Dufferin  did 
his  best  to  procure  trustworthy  information,  but  he  was 


208  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

necessarily  very  much  in  the  hands  of  the  Europeans  and 
of  the  Ministers  and  friends  of  the  Khedive.  He  did  not 
gather  from  the  dispatches  that  Lord  Dufferin  had  consulted 
the  people  of  Egypt.  Sir  George  Campbell,  the  member  for 
Kirkcaldy,  said  that  he  had  read,  marked,  learned,  and 
inwardly  digested  Lord  Dufferin's  scheme  of  government. 
For  his  own  part,  although  he  had  read,  marked,  and  learned 
it  to  a  certain  degree  he  could  not  digest  it  because  it  was 
objectionable  to  a  Radical  stomach.  Lord  Dufferin's 
scheme  was  a  perfect  sham  of  constitutional  government. 
If  any  species  of  representative  government  were  established 
in  Egypt  it  must  be  based  on  control  of  the  purse.  But 
when  anything  was  said  to  the  noble  Lord,  the  Under- 
secretary, on  this  subject,  he  vaguely  alluded  to  representa- 
tive government  and  international  obligations.  Was  Lord 
Dufferin  prevented  from  doing  what  he  thought  desirable 
for  the  country  by  any  obligations  which  the  Egyptians  were 
supposed  to  be  under  to  pay  the  interest  on  their  debt?  If 
there  was  any  obligation  on  their  part  it  was  not  our  business 
to  go  there  to  carry  it  out.  .  .  .  He  denied  that  the  people 
of  Egypt  were  bound  by  any  such  thing,  but,  supposing 
they  were,  it  was  not  England's  business  to  deprive  them  of 
the  most  elementary  and  necessary  basis  of  representative 
government — the  government  of  the  purse.1 

On  June  1 1,  he  proposed  the  reduction  of  Lord  Wolseley's 
grant  from  £30,000  to  £12,000.  What,  he  said,  had  Lord 
Wolseley  done  in  Egypt?  He  went  to  Ismailia  and  from 
thence  marched  his  men  to  Cairo.  He  took  the  straight 
road,  and  on  the  road  he  found  a  lot  of  miserable  Arabs 
entrenched;  he  advanced  and  the  Arabs  marched  away. 
That  was  the  whole  history  of  the  exploit  in  Egypt.2 

Lord  Dufferin  left  Egypt  in  May,  1883.  He  was  pleased 
with  the  success  of  his  mission.  To  use  his  own  words — 
"the  fellah  like  his  own  Memnon  had  not  remained  irre- 

1  Hansard,  March  2,  1883,  vol.  276. 
'  Ibid.,  June  II,  1883,  vol.  280. 


GLADSTONE'S  EGYPTIAN  POLICY  209 

sponsive  to  the  beams  of  the  new  dawn."  He  left  Sir  Edward 
Malet  as  Consul-General,  and  resumed  his  normal  functions 
at  Constantinople.  He  departed  under  a  shower  of  com- 
pliments, and  he  left  Egypt  apparently  prosperous.  Arabi 
was  an  exile  in  Ceylon.  Sherif  Pasha  was  the  Khedive's 
loyal  and  obedient  Minister.  Sir  Archibald  Alison  was 
in  command  of  the  British  garrison.  The  Egyptian  army, 
about  six  thousand  in  number,  was  under  the  fostering  care 
of  Sir  Evelyn  Wood.  Colonel  Scott- Moncrieff  directed  the 
work  of  irrigation,  and  another  Briton,  Sir  Benson  Maxwell, 
superintended  the  native  tribunals.  Hitherto  the  British 
Government  had  made  no  mistakes,  and  Egypt  had  reaped 
only  benefit  from  the  intrusion  of  the  foreigner.  The  false 
position  in  which  England  stood  with  full  authority,  ample 
power,  and  no  legal  right,  had  not  yet  led  to  any  consequences 
of  a  serious  and  practical  kind. ' 

Danger,  was,  however,  creeping  up  to  Egypt  from  the 
south.  A  vast,  vaguely  limited  country,  extending  from 
Assouan  to  the  Equator,  and  known  as  the  Soudan,  had 
been  claimed  as  Egyptian  territory  by  Ismail,  who  had 
appointed  the  famous  Gordon  Governor-General.  On 
Ismail's  fall  in  '79,  Gordon  was  recalled  and  the  Soudan  fell 
a  prey  to  local  bandits.  The  reconstituted  Egyptian  Govern- 
ment was  incapable  of  interference,  and  towards  the  end  of 
'82  a  Mussulman,  Mohamed  Ahmed,  raised  the  standard  of 
religious  reform  and  rebellion  against  the  distant  and  incapa- 
ble Egyptian  authorities.  The  Mahdi,  or  Messiah,  as  he 
called  himself,  took  El  Obeid  and  made  himself  master  of 
Kordofan  by  the  end  of  January,  '83.  In  the  summer  of 
the  same  year  seven  thousand  Egyptian  troops,  under  the 
command  of  Hicks  Pasha,  a  retired  officer  of  the  Indian  army, 
who  had  entered  the  service  of  the  Khedive,  were  dispatched 
against  him  by  the  Egyptian  Government.  Granville  was 
careful  to  formally  disengage  the  responsibility  of  the  English 
Cabinet  in  this  measure.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  he 

1  Herbert  Paul,  A  History  of  Modern  England,  vol.  iv. 
M 


210  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

could  have  prevented  this  action  of  the  Khedive's  Ministers, 
and,  as  he  was  perfectly  well  aware  through  the  information 
of  Colonel  Stewart,  who  had  been  associated  with  Gordon's 
administration,  of  the  utter  impossibility  of  Hicks's  task,  it 
is  difficult  to  acquit  him  of  moral  responsibility.  "The 
faith  in  the  power  of  phrases  to  alter  facts,"  says  Lord 
Milner  in  his  England  in  Egypt,  "has  never  been  more 
strangely  manifested  than  in  this  idea,  that  we  could  shake 
off  our  virtual  responsibility  for  the  policy  of  Egypt  in  the 
Soudan  by  a  formal  disclaimer."  On  November  5,  the 
Egyptian  force  was  cut  to  pieces  near  Shekan,  about  two 
days'  journey  from  El  Obeid,  by  the  Mahdi  at  the  head  of 
forty  thousand  men,  and  Hicks  and  his  staff  died  fighting 
at  hopeless  odds.  On  the  advice  of  Sir  Evelyn  Baring,  who 
had  just  arrived  in  Egypt  from  India,  where  he  had  filled 
the  post  of  Financial  Minister  to  Lord  Ripon's  Government, 
the  English  Cabinet  recognised  at  last  their  responsibility. 
It  was  decided  that  the  Soudan  must  be  abandoned  and 
that  the  Mahdi  must  be  induced  to  allow  the  Egyptian 
garrisons,  amounting  to  about  forty  thousand  men,  still 
remaining  there,  to  retire. 

Mr.  Labouchere  wrote  to  Mr.  Chamberlain  as  follows 
on  December  15,  1883:  "I  hope  that  we  are  not  going  to 
undertake  the  reconquest  of  the  Soudan.  The  difficult 
position  in  which  we  are  comes  from  not  having  broken 
entirely  with  the  Conservative  policy  in  Egypt.  They 
might  have  annexed  the  country:  we  cannot,  so  we  give 
advice  which  is  not  taken,  try  to  tinker  up  an  impossible 
financial  situation,  and  make  ourselves  responsible  for  every 
folly  committed  by  a  gang  of  corrupt  and  silly  Pashas.  The 
result  is  that  we  are  now  told  that  we  have  a  new  frontier 
somewhere  in  the  direction  of  the  Equator,  and  that  our 
honour  is  concerned,  etc.,  etc.  If  the  French  are  so  foolish 
as  to  wish  to  acquire  influence  in  the  Soudan,  I  cannot 
conceive  why  we  should  seek  to  acquire  it  in  order  to  prevent 
them.  I  believe  that  the  Khedive  and  his  friends  are  de- 


GLADSTONE'S  EGYPTIAN  POLICY  211 

lighted  at  what  has  occurred,  because  they  hope  that  our 
evacuation  will  be  put  off;  so  long  as  we  retain  one  soldier 
there,  or  indeed  assume  the  part  of  bailiffs  for  the  locusts 
who  make  money  out  of  the  country,  something  will  always 
occur  to  force  us  to  remain." 

Mr.  Chamberlain  replied  on  December  18:  "I  do  not 
think  there  is  the  slightest  intention  of  engaging  in  any 
operations  in  the  Soudan.  The  utmost  we  are  likely  to  do 
is  to  undertake  the  defence  of  Egypt  proper,  and  I  hope 
there  is  no  fear  of  that  being  attacked.  I  wish  we  could  get 
out  of  the  whole  business,  but  I  have  always  thought  that, 
at  the  time  we  interfered,  we  really  had  no  possible  alter- 
native. I  am  not  Christian  enough  to  turn  the  other  cheek 
after  one  has  been  slapped,  and  we  had  unfortunately  put 
ourselves  in  a  position  in  which  the  first  slap  had  already 
been  administered.  It  is,  however,  a  warning  and  a  lesson 
to  look  a  little  more  closely  into  the  beginnings  of  things." 

On  the  2Oth  Labouchere  wrote  again  to  Mr.  Chamber- 
lain: "From  all  I  hear,  matters  are  in  a  mess  in  Egypt. 
Tewfik  is  a  weak  creature,  and  he  and  his  entourage  intrigue 
against  us,  and  yet  intrigue  to  keep  us  there,  as  they  are  afraid 
of  what  may  happen  when  we  go.  If  the  fellahs  have  any 
opinion,  it  is  dislike  of  Tewfik  as  the  puppet  of  'foreigners.' 
The  Mahdi  will  never  attack  Egypt  proper,  which  is  the 
valley  of  the  Nile  and  the  Delta.  If  we  send  more  troops 
there,  it  will  be  the  more  difficult  to  evacuate.  As  long  as 
we  retain  a  corporal's  guard,  it  will  be  the  object  of  Tewfik 
and  all  the  locusts  to  get  up  disturbances  in  order  to  com- 
promise us.  Surely  it  would  be  easy  to  come  to  an  arrange- 
ment by  which  Egypt  would  be  neutralised  and  left  to  itself: 
the  reply  always  is  that  interest  of  the  debt  would  not  be 
paid  and  that,  in  consequence  of  the  Law  of  Liquidation, 
some  Power  would  interfere  for  the  benefit  of  its  Egyptian 
bondholders.  But  these  worthy  people  must  be  compara- 
tively few  in  numbers,  and  except  as  a  pretext,  no  Power 
would  think  of  taking  up  the  cudgels  for  them,  any  more 


212  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

than  they  did  for  Peruvian  bondholders.  The  whole  thing 
is  a  mere  bugbear.  Even  if  France  did  go  there  we  should 
not  suffer."  To  which  Mr.  Chamberlain  replied  on  Decem- 
ber 22:  "I  think  I  agree  with  you  on  all  points  of  Egyptian 
policy,  but  my  hands  are  so  full  just  now  that  I  have  to  let 
foreign  affairs  work  themselves  out,  and  to  content  myself 
with  occasionally  giving  a  push  in  the  right  direction." 

Public  opinion  in  England  was  deeply  stirred  by  the 
disaster  at  Shekan,  and  one  of  those  popular  cries  that  are 
so  often  and  so  disastrously  interpreted  as  heavenly  voices 
went  up  all  over  the  land.  The  nation  called  for  Gordon. 
The  question  of  Gordon's  mission  has  been  exhaustively 
discussed  from  every  point  of  view.  The  responsibility  for 
his  failure  and  tragic  death  is  apportioned  by  Lord  Cromer 
between  Gordon  himself  and  the  Government  who  over- 
ruled his  (Cromer's)  objection  to  employing  him,  and  went 
on  to  make  every  mistake  they  could.  Gordon  misinter- 
preted his  orders,  and  the  Government  was  then  made 
responsible  for  the  consequences  of  a  policy  of  which  they 
had  never  dreamt.  He  thus  placed  himself  in  a  situation 
from  which  it  was  impossible  to  extricate  him  in  time.  Mr. 
Wilfrid  Blunt,  on  the  other  hand,  places  the  responsibility 
of  the  tragedy  principally  at  the  door  of  Cromer.  I  am 
not  here  concerned  with  this  delicate  controversy.  Of  this 
at  least  there  is  no  doubt,  Gordon's  mission  was  understood 
by  the  country  and  Parliament  to  be  of  a  purely  peaceful 
nature.  Its  avowed  object  was  one  which  approved  itself 
to  Liberal  ideas,  i.e.  the  disengaging  of  British  responsibility 
from  a  purely  Egyptian  matter  and  the  rescue  of  the  Egyp- 
tian garrisons.  Radicals  understood  that  these  purposes 
were  to  be  achieved  by  purely  peaceful  means.  The  Mahdi 
was  presumably  to  be  approached  by  recognised  methods 
of  negotiation.  It  is  well  known  that  when  Gordon  got  to 
Khartoum,  these  instructions  went  by  the  board.  He  had 
been  nominated,  while  on  his  way,  at  Cairo,  Governor- 
General  of  the  Soudan,  and  the  Government  left,  by  means 


GLADSTONE'S  EGYPTIAN  POLICY  213 

of  supplementary  clauses  in  their  instructions,  a  considerable 
latitude  to  Baring  under  whose  orders,  at  his  (Baring's) 
request,  Gordon  was  placed.  Lord  Cromer  has  told  the 
world  in  his  Modern  Egypt  of  the  difficulties  of  the  situation. 
Gordon  was  a  mystic  and  suffered  chronically  from  "inspira- 
tions," which  changed  a  dozen  times  a  day.  He  does  not 
seem  to  have  made  any  attempt  to  carry  out  his  mission 
by  diplomatic  methods.  He  soon  came  to  conceive  of  that 
mission  as  a  sort  of  rival  "Mahdism."  He  became  the 
Angel  of  the  Lord  fighting  with  Apollyon.  All  this  must 
have  been  inexpressibly  disconcerting  to  the  prudent  homme 
d'affaires  at  Cairo,  and  no  less  so  to  his  nominal  superior  in 
Downing  Street. 

Mr.  Labouchere's  attitude  in  the  matter  was  simple  and 
consistent.  On  February  14,  four  days  before  Gordon 
started,  the  Opposition  moved  a  vote  of  censure  on  the 
Government  in  consequence  of  the  Hicks  disaster,  and  were 
supported  by  several  Radical  members.  Sir  Wilfrid  Lawson 
was  supported  by  Mr.  Labouchere  in  an  amendment  to  Sir 
Stafford  Northcote's  motion:  "That  this  House,  whilst 
declining  at  present  to  express  an  opinion  on  the  Egyptian 
policy  which  Her  Majesty's  Government  have  pursued 
during  the  last  two  years  with  the  support  of  the  House, 
trusts  that  in  future  British  forces  may  not  be  employed 
for  the  purpose  of  interfering  with  the  Egyptian  people  in 
their  selection  of  their  own  Government."1  On  February 
25,  by  which  time  news  of  the  conquest  of  Tokar  by  Osman 
Digna,  the  ablest  of  the  Mahdi's  lieutenants,  had  reached 
England,  Mr.  Labouchere  asked  the  Secretary  for  War 
whether  it  was  within  the  discretion  of  General  Graham  to 
advance  beyond  Suakim  against  Osman  Digna.  Hartington 
replied  oracularly  that  that  appeared  to  him  a  question 
highly  undesirable  to  answer  and  that  the  general  object 
of  Graham's  instructions  had  been  already  stated  to  the 
House. 

1  Hansard,  February  14,  1884,  vol.  284. 


214  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

Mr.  Wilfrid  Blunt's  Diary  for  April  4,  1884,  records  the 
following  conversation  with  Mr.  Labouchere:  "Lunched 
with  Labouchere.  He  is  more  practical,  and  we  have  dis- 
cussed every  detail  of  the  policy  to  be  suggested  to  Glad- 
stone. He  will  feel  the  ground  through  Herbert  Gladstone, 
which  is  his  way  of  consulting  the  oracle.  He  told  me  the 
history  of  Gordon's  mission.  Gordon's  idea  had  been  to  go 
out  and  make  friends  with  the  Mahdi,  and  to  have  absolutely 
nothing  to  do  with  Baring  or  the  Khedive,  or  with  anybody 
in  Egypt.  He  was  going  to  Suakim  straight,  where  he 
counted  upon  one  of  the  neighbouring  Sheiks,  whose  sons' 
lives  he  had  saved  or  spared,  and  his  mission  was  to  be  one 
entirely  of  peace.  But  the  Foreign  Office  and  Baring  caught 
hold  of  him  as  he  passed  through  Egypt,  and  made  him  stop 
to  see  the  Khedive,  and  so  he  was  befooled  into  going  to 
Khartoum  as  the  Khedive's  lieutenant.  Now  he  had  failed 
altogether  in  his  mission  of  peace,  and  the  Government  had 
recalled  him  more  than  once  in  the  last  few  days,  but  he  had 
refused  to  come  back.  Gladstone  had  decided  absolutely 
to  recall  all  the  troops  in  Egypt  when  Hicks'  defeat  was 
heard  of,  and  was  in  a  great  rage.  The  expedition  to  Suakim 
had  been  forced  upon  him  by  the  Cabinet,  and  Hartington 
had  taken  care  to  give  Graham  no  special  instructions,  so 
that  he  might  fight  without  orders.  This  Graham,  of  course, 
had  done,  and  Gladstone,  more  angry  still,  had  gone  down 
to  sulk  at  Coombe.  Now  he  would  stand  it  no  longer,  and 
he  had  let  Hartington  in  by  the  speech  he  had  made  last 
night.  Nobody  expected  it.  Labouchere  thought  the  mo- 
ment most  favourable  for  a  new  move."1  And  on  May 
19  Mr.  Labouchere  asked  in  the  House:  "Whether,  for  the 
satisfaction  of  those  who  believe  that  it  has  never  been 
brought  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Mahdi  and  of  the  Soudanese 
who  are  engaged  in  military  operations  what  the  object  of 
the  mission  of  General  Gordon  is,  he  will  consider  the  feasi- 
bility of  conveying  to  them  that  Her  Majesty's  Government, 

1  Wilfrid  Scawen  Blunt,  Gordon  and  Khartoum. 


GLADSTONE'S  EGYPTIAN  POLICY  215 

in  sending  an  English  General  to  the  Soudan,  only  desired 
to  effect  by  peaceful  means  the  withdrawal  of  the  Egyptian 
troops,  employes,  and  other  foreigners  who  many  wish  to 
leave  the  country,  and  whether  he  will  take  steps  to  enter 
into  diplomatic  relations  with  the  Mahdi,  or  whomsoever 
else  may  be  the  governing  power  in  the  Soudan,  in  order  to 
prevent  if  possible  all  further  effusion  of  blood,  to  establish 
a  fixed  frontier  between  Egypt  and  the  Soudan,  and  to  effect 
an  arrangement  by  which  General  Gordon  and  those  who 
may  wish  to  accompany  him  will  be  enabled  peaceably  to 
withdraw  from  the  Soudan."1  Mr.  Gladstone  replied  to 
Mr.  Labouchere's  question,  finishing  his  remarks  with  these 
words:  "Whatever  measures  the  Government  take  will  be 
in  the  direction  indicated  by  the  question — to  make  effective 
arrangements  with  regard  to  putting  all  the  difficulties  at 
an  end." 

Mr.  Labouchere,  to  whom,  as  a  Radical  and  a  Nation- 
alist, the  position  of  the  Mahdi  appealed,  did  not  confine 
himself  to  work  in  Parliament.  Mr.  Wilfrid  Blunt  was 
attempting  to  negotiate  with  Mr.  Gladstone  to  stop  the 
war,  which  had  followed  Gordon's  death,  and  had  taken  Mr. 
Labouchere  into  his  confidence.  Mr.  Labouchere  wrote  to 
Mr.  Blunt  on  February  20,  1885,  as  follows: 

DEAR  BLUNT, — I  had  a  talk  with  H(erbert)  G(ladstone) 
last  night.  He  wants  to  know  what  evidence  can  be  given — 
that  the  man  who  came  to  me  was  Arabi's  Minister  of  Police  at 
Cairo,  and  what  was  his  name — and  that  the  Mahdi's  man  is 
the  Mahdi's  man.  It  is  clear  that  so  far  he  is  right.  If  the 
latter  has  no  credentials  he  should  get  them.  Let  us  assume 
that  he  either  has  them  or  can  get  them.  Then  there  must  be  a 
basis  of  terms.  I  would  suggest  then  that  the  Soudan,  with  the 
exception  of  the  Port  of  Suakim,  be  recognised  as  an  independent 
state  under,  if  wished,  the  suzerainty  of  the  Sultan,  and  that  all 
Egyptian  Pashas  who  wish  to  leave  it  be  allowed  to  leave  it. 

If  the  credentials  hold  water,  and  if  these  terms  are  agreed  to, 

1  Hansard,  May  19,  1884,  vol.  288. 


216  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

then  the  Mahdi's  man  should  write  them  out  and  say  that  he 
will  agree  to  them. 

But  it  is  very  essential  that  nothing  should  be  known  about 
the  matter.  I  should  have  to  work  others  in  the  Cabinet,  and, 
if  necessary,  to  appeal  to  Parliament.  Clearly  we  could  not 
send  a  mission  to  the  Mahdi,  but  if  an  agreement  were  come  to, 
an  emissary  from  the  Mahdi  and  one  from  our  Government  might 
meet  for  details.  What  I  want  is  to  establish  a  discussion  with 
the  Mahdi — the  rest  would  follow. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

P.5. — You  see,  if  something  is  to  be  done  to  stop  this  war, 
we  must  leave  the  vague,  and  come  to  hard  and  fast  facts. 

In  elucidation  of  the  above  letter  Mr.  Blunt  writes  to 
me  on  February  20,  1913:  "The  person  referred  to  in  your 
uncle's  letter  of  February  20,  1885,  is  clearly  Ismail  Bey 
Jowdat,  who  acted  as  Prefect  of  Police  at  Cairo  during  the 
war  of  1882.  .  .  .  Later  he  came  to  London  in  connection 
with  negotiations  I  was  attempting  to  get  entered  into  by 
Gladstone  with  the  Mahdi,  through  Sezzed  Jamal  ed  Din, 
as  to  which  I  was  in  communication  with  your  uncle.  .  .  . 
I  had,  no  doubt,  sent  Jowdat  to  your  uncle,  and,  at  one  time, 
it  seemed  as  if  we  were  likely  to  succeed  in  getting  a  mission 
sent  or  negotiations  of  some  kind  entered  into  to  stop  the 
war.  .  .  .  Jowdat  was  never  himself  an  agent  of  the  Mahdi, 
but  he  was  for  the  time  with  Jamal  ed  Din,  who  was  in 
communication  with  Khartoum.  .  .  ." 

Communication  with  the  Mahdi  was  apparently  not  easy, 
for  we  find  Mr.  Labouchere  writing  again  to  Mr.  Blunt  the 
following  month  (March  4,  1885): 

It  appears  to  me  that  there  will  be  a  pause  in  our  Soudan 
operations.  It  might  therefore  be  desirable  to  take  advantage 
of  this  in  order  to  learn  on  what  terms  an  agreement  might  be 
come  to  between  us  and  the  Soudanese.  Those  in  Parliament 
who,  like  myself,  see  no  reason  why  we  should  interfere  in  the 
internal  affairs  of  that  country  would  be  greatly  strengthened, 
were  we  to  know  the  precise  views  of  the  Mahdi. 


GLADSTONE'S  EGYPTIAN  POLICY  217 

I  would  therefore  suggest  to  you  that,  if  possible,  his  agent 
should  let  us  know  definitely,  and  after  conversation  with  the 
Mahdi,  whether  the  latter  would  agree  to  the  following  terms: 

1 .  The  recognition  on  the  part  of  England  of  the  independ- 
ence of  the  Soudan,  and  of  the  Mahdi  as  its  ruler. 

2.  The  Northern  frontier  of  the  Soudan  to  be  drawn  at  or 
near  Wady  Haifa;  the  Eastern  frontier  to  exclude  Suakim  and 
the  coast. 

3.  The  Mahdi  to  pledge  himself  not  to  molest  any  Soudanese 
who  have  taken  our  side,  and  to  allow  all  who  wish  to  leave  the 
country  to  do  so. 

4.  The  Mahdi  to  receive  a  Consular  and  Diplomatic  Agent 
at  Khartoum;  to  allow  all  foreigners  to  carry  on  their  business 
unmolested  in  the  Soudan. 

5.  The  establishment  of  some  sort  of  Consular  Courts. 

6.  If  possible  some  clause  with  regard  to  the  export  of  slaves 
forbidding  it. 

It  is  our  object  to  meet  the  assertion  of  the  Government  that 
the  Mahdi  is  a  religious  fanatic  with  whom  it  is  impossible  to 
treat,  because  he  does  not  regard  himself,  alone,  as  the  temporal 
ruler  of  the  Soudan,  but  as  a  spiritual  leader  of  Islam  against 
Christianity — a  species  of  Oriental  Peter  the  Hermit.  What  we 
want  to  show  is  that  he  is  the  proper  ruler  of  the  Soudan,  and 
that,  whilst  it  will  be  open  to  any  one  outside  that  country  to 
regard  him  as  a  prophet,  he  seeks  to  establish  no  temporal  sway 
beyond  the  Soudan.  If  the  Mahdi  would  declare  his  assent  to 
the  above  terms,  I  am  convinced  that  popular  feeling  here,  and 
the  real  wishes  of  the  members  of  the  Government,  would  soon 
bring  this  war  to  a  close,  and  that  in  a  very  short  time  we  and  the 
Mahdi  would  be  the  best  of  friends. 

It  seems  unlikely  that  the  terms  laid  down  in  this  letter 
were  suggested  by  Mr.  Labouchere  without  consultation 
with  Mr.  Herbert  Gladstone. 

He  missed  no  opportunity  in  Parliament  of  fighting  the 
good  fight  of  Radical  principles.  At  one  moment  he  is 
pointing  out  the  two  cardinal  heresies  in  the  policy  of  the 
Government — one  political  and  the  other  financial:  "The 


218  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

political  heresy  is  that  we  insist  on  putting  up  the  Khedive 
and  maintaining  him  in  power  against  his  subjects.  The 
result  is  that  we  are  absolutely  hated  in  Egypt,  and  wherever 
we  are  not  hated  we  are  regarded  with  contempt."  The 
financial  heresy  is  that  "we  always  insist  in  our  treatment 
of  Egyptian  finance  that  the  payment  of  interest  on  the  debt 
should  come  first,  and  the  expenses  of  administration  second. 
The  result  of  this  policy  is  over- taxation,  the  postponement 
of  reform,  and  a  deficit." r  The  policy  of  the  Liberal  Govern- 
ment was  in  reality,  though  not  in  profession,  he  asserted, 
Jingo  policy,  and  the  Radicals  who  had  worked  for  Mr. 
Gladstone's  return  to  power,  relying  on  his  Midlothian 
speeches,  had  been  jockeyed.  If  only  Mr.  Gladstone  would 
take  his  (Labouchere's)  advice.  No  doubt  the  Prime 
Minister  when  thinking  the  matter  over  would  say — Why 
did  I  not  follow  the  member  for  Northampton?  I  should 
not  have  been  in  such  a  mess  as  I  am  now.  For  his  own  part 
Mr.  Labouchere  stood  by  the  policy  of  the  Midlothian 
campaign,  when  the  Prime  Minister  denounced  the  Jingo 
policy  of  annexation  and  war.  If  any  one  had  then  said: 
"You  will  acquire  power  and  become  the  most  powerful 
Minister  England  has  had  for  many  a  day ;  you  will  bombard 
Alexandria;  you  will  massacre  Egyptians  at  Tel-el- Kebir 
and  Suakim,  and  you  will  go  on  a  sort  of  wild-cat  expedition 
into  the  wilds  of  Ethiopia  in  order  to  put  down  a  prophet  "- 
the  right  honourable  gentleman  would  have  replied  in  the 
words  of  Hazael  to  the  King  of  Syria — "Is  thy  servant  a 
dog  that  he  should  do  this  thing?"2 

This  kind  of  sword-play  went  on  day  after  day  in  the 
House,  and  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  that,  although  Mr. 
Labouchere  was  unquestionably  sincere  in  deploring  the 
policy  of  the  Government,  he  must  have  greatly  enjoyed  the 
opportunity  which  it  afforded  him  of  displaying  his  wit  and 
humour.  Mr.  Gladstone  did  not  always  appreciate  these 

1  Hansard,  March  26,  1885,  vol.  295. 
•  Ibid.,  Feb.  27,  1885,  vol.  294. 


GLADSTONE'S  EGYPTIAN  POLICY  219 

qualities,  and  on  one  occasion,  when  Mr.  Labouchere  was 
attempting  to  divide  the  House  against  the  Government, 
his  object  being,  as  he  said,  "not  adverse  to  the  Government, 
but  to  strengthen  the  good  intentions  of  the  Prime  Minister 
in  future,"  that  much  enduring  statesman  turned  and 
solemnly  rebuked  him  for  making  an  "inopportune  and 
superficial  speech."1 

The  case  against  the  Government  from  the  Radical 
point  of  view  was,  of  course,  very  obvious  and  easy  to  put, 
nor  was  there  anything  particularly  original  about  Mr. 
Labouchere's  arguments.  He  rang  the  changes  incessantly 
on  three  points:  the  essential  injustice  of  our  position  in 
Egypt  towards  the  Egyptians — the  underlying  venality  of 
the  Government's  position  owing  to  their  connection  with 
the  bondholders — and  the  monstrous  expense  to  the  British 
taxpayer  of  British  military  intervention.  It  was  not  the 
matter  of  his  charges,  but  the  manner  in  which  he  made 
them  that  delighted  the  House.  Sometimes  he  would  lay 
aside  his  dialectical  weapons  and  let  the  facts  speak  for 
themselves.  One  day  he  asks  the  Secretary  for  War  if  his 
attention  has  been  drawn  to  the  following  statements  in 
the  Times  of  May  7 : 

Daylight  broke  almost  imperceptibly.  We  were  nearer  the 
village  of  Dhakool,  when  the  friendly  scouts  came  running  in 
with  the  news  that  the  inhabitants  were  at  prayer,  and  that  if  we 
attacked  at  once  we  should  catch  them.  General  Graham  pushed 
on  with  a  troop  of  the  Bengal  Lancers.  .  .  .  The  enemy  fled 
on  camels  in  all  directions,  and  the  Mounted  Infantry  and  Camel 
corps,  coming  up,  gave  chase.  Some  two  hundred  attempted  to 
stand,  and  showed  a  disposition  to  come  at  us,  but  evidently 
lost  heart  and  disappeared,  not  before  having  at  least  twenty 
men  killed.  ...  It  was  curious  to  witness  the  desperate  efforts 
of  the  enemy  to  drive  their  flocks  up  the  steep  mountain  side, 
turning  now  and  again  to  fire  on  the  Bengal  Lancers.  The 
"  Friendlies  "  tried  to  cut  off  the  flocks,  and  succeeded  in  catching 

1  Hansard,  April  13,  1885,  vol.  296. 


220  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

some  thousands  of  animals.  .  .  .  The  village  was  looted  and 
burnt.  .  .  .  We  also  destroyed  the  well  with  gun-cotton.  .  .  . 
But,  for  our  being  unaware  of  the  existence  of  some  narrow  hillock 
walks  up  which  the  enemy  retired,  we  might  have  exterminated 
them.  Our  loss  has  been  hitherto  only  two  Mounted  Infantry 
men  wounded.  .  .  .  We  have  done  the  enemy  all  the  harm  we 
could,  thus  fulfilling  the  primary  object  of  war. 

Lord  Hartington  could  find  nothing  to  say,  but  that  such 
incidents  were  unfortunately  inseparable  from  war.1 

It  may  be  doubted,  however,  whether  Mr.  Labouchere's 
advocacy  did  very  much  for  his  cause,  or  for  his  own  reputa- 
tion as  a  serious  politician.  The  British  public  (and  the 
House  of  Commons  is  a  sort  of  microcosm  of  the  British 
public)  finds  it  hard  to  believe  in  sincerity  accompanied  by 
banter  and  persiflage.  Not  so  are  Englishmen  wont  to 
express  their  conscientious  convictions.  Mr.  Labouchere 
was,  of  course,  not  an  Englishman.  He  was  a  Frenchman 
and,  as  I  have  said  before,  in  his  mentality  a  lineal  descend- 
ant of  Voltaire.  He  could  hardly  hope  to  succeed  where 
John  Bright  had  failed. 

That  Mr.  Labouchere's  attitude  on  the  subject  of  Egypt 
was  appreciated  by  the  Egyptians  is  proved  by  a  perusal 
of  the  letters  he  received  from  Arabi  in  exile,  long  after  the 
subject  had  ceased  to  be  a  stone  on  which  the  Radical  axe 
could  be  ground.  I  append  some  of  these,  and  another 
letter  from  Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Wilfrid  Blunt  on  the 
subject  of  the  Exiles. 

COLOMBO,  September  15, 1891. 

MY  DEAR  SIR, — I  beg  the  liberty  to  trouble  you  with  this  in 
the  hope  of  your  being  able  to  learn  more  of  the  state  of  our  health 
than  you  have  been  hitherto.  One  of  the  most  eminent  medical 
practitioners  in  Ceylon,  Dr.  Vandort,  left  for  England  in  the 
last  week  in  the  German  mail  steamship  Preussen.  I  have  asked 
him  to  call  on  you  and  Sir  William  Gregory  and  inform  you  of 

1  Hansard,  May  8,  1885,  vol.  298. 


GLADSTONE'S  EGYPTIAN  POLICY  221 

the  actual  state  of  such  of  us  as  he  has  attended  on.  By  the 
death  of  Dr.  White  we  lost  our  best  evidence,  and  it  pleased  those 
in  authority  not  to  heed  at  all  the  opinion  of  our  regular  medical 
advisers  and  to  rely  on  that  of  gentlemen  who,  whatever  their 
high  standing  and  attainments,  had  but  one  opportunity  of 
seeing  us.  Had  they  questioned  also  those  who  attended  on  us 
and  our  families  for  years  they  might  have  been  better  able  to 
form  an  opinion. 

I  am  now  suffering  very  much  from  my  eyes,  being  scarcely 
able  to  read  anything,  and  am  waiting  until  an  oculist  from 
Madras  could  examine  them  and  tell  me  what  I  may  expect. 

Pray  forgive  me  for  troubling  with  this  letter.  We  have  so 
few  of  your  kind  feelings  and  position  to  look  up  to — and  if  we 
are  too  importunate  we  would  only  beg  to  be  pardoned. 

In  the  hope  that  you  are  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  blessing  of 
health,  and  begging  the  kind  acceptance  of  all  respectful  regards — 
I  remain,  yours  most  obediently, 

A.  ARABI,  the  Egyptian. 

COLOMBO,  December  9,  1891. 

MY  DEAR  SIR, — I  had  the  great  pleasure  to  receive  your  kind 
letters  of  the  2d  and  8th  October,  and  should  have  replied  earlier 
but  for  having  had  to  communicate  with  my  brethren  in  exile, 
and  for  there  being  time  before  the  next  meeting  of  Parliament. 
We  beg  your  kindly  acceptance  of  our  grateful  thanks. 

We  have  been  officially  informed  of  the  decision  of  H.  M.'s 
Government  on  our  memorial  to  Lord  Salisbury,  but  for  which 
we  were  prepared  by  yourself  and  Sir  William  Gregory ;  and  also 
by  Lord  de  la  Warr,  who  very  kindly  sent  to  me  copies  of  the 
papers  (Egypt,  No.  I,  1891),  printed  for  both  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment, in  March  last,  and  of  his  speeches  and  Lord  Salisbury's 
reply  in  May  and  June  last.  I  now  send  copies  as  requested  of 
the  medical  certificates  had  by  Toulba  Pasha  and  the  late  Abdulal 
Pasha  since  the  memorial,  also  the  Colonial  Secretary's  letter 
to  us  and  my  reply.  [All  these  were  enclosed  with  this  letter.] 

You  will  permit  me  to  ask  your  notice  of  Riaz  Pasha's  Memo- 
randum of  July  9,  1890,  to  the  Foreign  Office  concluding  with: 
"  H.  M's  Government  should  in  any  case  remember  that  the  exiles 
were  pardoned  and  allowances  granted  to  them  on  the  express 


222  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

condition  that  they  should  remain  at  some  distant  spot,  such  as 
the  island  of  Ceylon."  On  this  rather  qualified  assertion  it  would 
quite  do  to  refer  to  Mr.  Broadley's  book  How  we  Defended  Arabi 
and  his  Friends,  where  the  terms  of  the  arrangement  which  put 
an  end  to  the  proceedings  in  connection  with  our  "trial"  will  be 
found.  Mr.  Broadley  and  Mr.  Napier  could  not,  as  I  cannot, 
in  honour  reveal  more  than  they  have  done,  but  my  steadfast 
friend,  Mr.  Blunt,  was  not  so  constrained  to  be  reticent,  and  his 
communications  to  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  showed  what  even  the 
great  noble-minded  General  Gordon  believed  the  nature  and 
extent  of  our  exile  to  be. 

We  should  not  perhaps  however  complain  of  our  not  being  per- 
mitted to  end  our  days  in  the  land  of  our  birth,  although  what 
harm  that,  or  our  being  in  Cyprus,  could  now  do  I  cannot  con- 
ceive. That  none  of  us  have  desired  or  sought  in  the  least  to 
be  disloyal  to  our  parole  the  testimony  of  Sir  Arthur  Gordon 
to  our  conduct  should  be  sufficient.  If  all  my  correspondence, 
family  and  other,  for  the  last  nine  years  were  read,  or  any  of  the 
hundreds  of  my  visitors,  from  every  part  of  the  world,  were 
questioned,  nothing  would  there  be  to  show  the  least  wish  to 
disturb  or  stay  the  progress  of  my  loved  native  land  since  my 
poor  efforts  failed. 

If  you  would  kindly  refer  to  Mr.  Broadley's  book  you  will 
find  Lord  Dufferin's  scheme  in  1883  for  the  reorganisation  of  my 
country,  and  my  views  on  Egyptian  reform  in  1882.  After  nine 
years,  when  almost  the  whole  of  that  scheme  and  so  many  of 
my  humble  views  have  been  successfully  carried  out,  is  it  possible 
that  any  one  beyond  my  personal  enemies  in  my  own  country 
could  deem  me  capable  of  even  dreaming  of  doing  anything  to 
see  her  in  misery  again?  My  greatest  trust  is  yet  what  it  was 
when  I  wrote  to  the  Times  from  my  prison  in  1882:  "I  hope  the 
people  of  England  will  complete  the  work  which  I  commenced. 
If  England  accomplishes  this  task,  and  thus  really  gives  Egypt 
to  the  Egyptians,  she  will  then  make  clear  to  the  world  the  real 
aim  and  object  of  Arabi  the  Rebel"  (Mr.  Broadley's  book,  p. 
349).  I  cannot  hope  to  see  the  time,  but  it  must  come  under 
such  auspices  when  Egypt  will  cease  to  be  a  "reproach  to  the 
nations,"  Islam  although  she  be. 

My  fellow  exiles  and  I  have  considered  much  on  the  subject 


GLADSTONE'S  EGYPTIAN  POLICY  223 

of  the  parole  you  suggest  in  regard  to  Cyprus.  Our  simple 
parole  was  all  that  Lord  Dufferin  required  of  us  when  exiled. 
We  gave  it,  and  he  was  satisfied.  We  have  honourably  kept  our 
word,  and  it  is  only  now,  when  we  find  our  place  of  sojourn  proving 
so  increasingly  injurious  to  the  health  of  most  of  us  and  our 
families,  that  we  pray  for  a  change  to  a  more  congenial  climate. 
In  every  other  respect  we  could  not  dream  nor  hope  for  a  better 
home  of  exile.  We  leave  everything  to  your  judgment.  If  you 
think  a  repetition  of  our  parole  necessary,  or  of  any  use,  we  shall 
gladly  give  it  again,  although  our  first,  religiously  observed,  has 
been  so  slighted ;  and  we  shall  send  it  to  you  as  soon  as  you  may 
desire  it.  You  have  done  much  for  us,  and  our  return  for  it  all 
could  only  be  gratefully  felt,  not  expressed;  and  you  will  permit 
us  to  leave  it  to  you  to  do  for  us  whatever  more  in  your  judgment 
may  be  expedient,  and,  whatever  that  may  be,  permit  us  to 
assure  you  of  our  fullest  trust. 

If  any  prospect  of  the  change  of  residence  we  seek  is  hopeless, 
and  Lord  Salisbury  should  adhere  to  his  wish  to  keep  us  here,  I 
may  but  beg  your  best  endeavour  to  obtain  the  increase  of  allow- 
ance I  have  applied  for  in  my  letter  to  the  Colonial  Secretary, 
to  enable  me  to  have  the  benefit  of  such  change  as  the  variable 
climate  of  this  island  could  in  some  degree  afford. 

I  had  the  pleasure  last  week  of  two  kind  visits  by  Mr.  J.  R. 
Cox,  M.P.,  on  his  return  home  from  Australia  in  the  Orizaba. 
He  mentioned  your  request  and  his  promise  to  see  me  if  he  came 
to  Colombo,  and  your  desire  that  he  should  learn  from  me  all  I 
had  to  say;  and  he  asked  me  to  give  him  a  statement,  which  I 
have  done  to  the  best  of  my  ability  both  by  word  of  mouth  and 
in  writing.  He  said  he  had  been  long  away,  and  had  not  seen 
the  papers  Lord  de  la  Warr  sent  me  until  then.  I  need  not  say 
how  deeply  gratifying  it  was  to  hear  from  him  of  your  interest 
in  us  and  of  your  exertions  on  our  behalf,  and  of  the  wide  feelings 
of  sympathy  you  have  raised  for  us. 

You  will  forgive  me  for  trespassing  on  your  time  and  work 
with  this  long  letter;  and  if  I  have  been  led  to  say  anything  that 
I  have  troubled  your  attention  with  before,  I  may  only  beg  the 
extension  of  your  indulgence  for  it.  Placed  as  I  am  now,  able 
to  think  only  of  the  past,  and  with  no  hope  for  life's  future  on 
earth,  and  deprived  more  and  more  of  my  greatest  solace,  study, 


224  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

by  the  growing  weakness  of  sight,  I  fear  that  my  communications 
to  you  and  to  those  who  have  likewise  generously  extended  sym- 
pathy to  us  in  our  strait  are  of  too  melancholy  a  tinge.  As  any 
prospect  of  better  days  seems  all  but  closed  to  us,  we  may  but 
bow  in  humble  resignation  and  submission  to  the  Divine  Will. 
When  this  letter  comes  to  you  it  will  be  your  great  season  of  joy 
and  peace.  Permit  me  and  my  family  to  offer  you  our  best 
regards  and  wishes  for  many  a  happy  enjoyment  together  and 
return  of  the  things  to  you  and  all  dear  to  you. — And  believe  me, 
yours  most  gratefully  and  sincerely, 

AHMED  ARABI,  the  Egyptian. 

5  OLD  PALACE  YARD,  S.  W.,  Feb.  i,  1893. 

MY  DEAR  BLUNT, — Jingoism  under  Rosebery  reigns  supreme. 
I  will,  however,  see  if  anything  can  be  done  about  Arabi.  Your 
details  are  very  interesting  respecting  the  late  events  in  Egypt. 
Cannot  the  Khedive  be  induced  to  do  this?:  Get  his  Chamber 
to  pass  a  resolution  declaring  that  Egypt  wishes  for  independence 
of  all  European  intervention,  and  trusts  that  the  British  occupa- 
tion will  cease.  If  it  did  this  we  should  be  able  to  meet  the  per- 
sistent statements  that  the  Fellaheen  wants  us  and  loves  us. 
The  Turkish  Pashas  might  agree  so  as  to  spite  us,  but  if  once  the 
country  were  left  to  itself,  the  Chamber  could  assert  (?)  itself. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  how  long  the  Government  will  last. 
Probably  through  the  session. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 


CHAPTER  X 
HENRY  LABOUCHERE'S  RADICALISM 


dealing  further  with  the  part  played  by  Labou- 
chere  in  Irish  legislation,  it  will  be  necessary  to  consider 
his  view  of  English  politics  as  a  whole.  He  had  not  at  first 
been  an  enthusiastic  partisan  of  Home  Rule.  He  had  even 
gone  the  length  at  Northampton  of  saying  that  he  himself 
was  no  Home  Ruler.  Yet,  in  point  of  fact,  no  English 
member  was  a  more  zealous  advocate  of  Irish  claims  than  he. 
Why  was  this?  His  motives,  as  I  have  been  able  to  gather 
them  from  many  conversations  with  him  on  the  subject, 
were  twofold:  His  Radical  soul  was  disgusted  by  what, 
in  the  face  of  the  Irish  attitude,  was  the  only  alternative 
to  Home  Rule,  namely  coercion,  and  he  realised  that  the 
only  effective  way  to  "dish  the  Whigs,"  whom  he  hated 
even  more  than  the  Conservatives,  was  to  use  the  Irish 
vote. 

The  second  motive  was  by  far  the  stronger.  He  had  a 
definite  conception  of  Radical  government  to  which  he 
would  undoubtedly  have  sacrificed  hecatombs  of  Irish 
patriots  if  necessary.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Irish  patriots 
happened  to  be  a  useful  means  towards  his  end,  the  estab- 
lishment of  such  a  government.  Hence  his  alliance  with 
them.  When  Mr.  Gladstone  and  his  Whig-Radical  Govern- 
ment were  faced  in  1880  with  the  Irish  question  in  so  acute 
a  form,  Labouchere  saw  a  real  possibility  ahead  of  estab- 
lishing a  Radical  as  distinguished  from  a  merely  Liberal 

IS  225 


226  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

Government.  The  protagonist  of  his  scheme  was  Mr. 
Chamberlain,  already  a  member  of  the  Cabinet,  and,  in 
the  natural  course  of  events,  the  almost  certain  successor 
of  the  already  venerable  statesman  whose  name  had  become 
the  war-cry  of  English  Liberalism. 

With  Mr.  Chamberlain  as  Prime  Minister  almost  any- 
thing might  happen:  the  Lords  and  the  Church  might  go, 
England  might  become,  in  all  save  the  name,  a  republic. 
Mr.  Chamberlain  was  the  one  statesman  with  whom  he 
found  himself  in  complete  agreement  as  to  the  articles  of 
the  Radical  faith,  and  in  his  future  he  saw  the  future  of  the 
party  and  of  England.  He  wrote  to  him  on  July  3,  1883: 
"I  was  caught  young  and  sent  to  America;  there  I  imbibed 
the  political  views  of  the  country,  so  that  my  Radicalism 
is  not  a  joke,  but  perfectly  earnest.  My  opinion  on  most  of 
the  institutions  of  this  country  is  that  of  Americans — that 
they  are  utterly  absurd  and  ridiculous.  Nothing  would 
give  me  greater  pleasure  than  to  see  you  leader  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  with  a  Parliament  pledged  to  the  most  drastic 
reforms.  This  is  the  aim  of  my  humble  endeavours,  but, 
in  the  nature  of  things,  a  member  below  the  gangway  has 
not  the  same  responsibilities  as  a  Minister,  and,  if  he  is  a 
Radical,  necessarily  is  more  advanced  than  a  composite 
Cabinet.  Hehas,  too,  to  make  motions  or  to  hold  his  tongue. 
For  instance,  my  amendment  yesterday  evening  on  titles 
was  regarded  in  the  House  of  Commons  as  a  joke.  But  go 
to  any  meeting  of  even  Liberals,  and  you  would  find  that 
it  was  essentially  a  popular  one.  The  real  trouble  in  the 
House  of  Commons  is  that  the  Radicals  below  the  gangway 
are  such  a  miserable  lot,  and  seem  ashamed  of  their  opinions. 
The  Whigs,  on  the  contrary,  out  of  office  act  solidly  together. 
This  leads  the  public  to  suppose  that  your  views  are  in  a 
small  minority  in  the  House  of  Commons.  If  the  Whigs 
are  ready  to  pull  a  coach  half  way  to  what  they  consider  a 
precipice,  they  must  be  greater  fools  than  I  take  them  to  be. 
They  do  not  act  openly,  but  they  conspire  secretly.  So  long, 


HENRY  LABOUCHERE'S  RADICALISM         227 

however,  as  they  consent  to  work  in  harness,  they  ought  to 
be  encouraged.  You  have  told  them  the  goal,  and  I  am 
certain  that  this  declaration  has  done  more  to  strengthen 
radicalism  than  anything  that  has  happened  for  long.  So 
I  am  perfectly  contented,  and  quite  ready  to  leave  well 
alone." 

Alas  for  the  schemes  of  mortals!  The  very  element  on 
which  Labouchere  relied  for  the  strengthening  of  the  Radical 
cause  in  the  Cabinet  was  to  prove  to  Mr.  Chamberlain  him- 
self the  parting  of  the  ways.  The  statesman  who  was  to 
reach  the  highest  power  on  the  shoulders  of  Irish  voters, 
when  it  came  to  the  point,  would  have  none  of  such  support. 
The  corner-stone  fell  out  of  the  grandiose  edifice  that  Labou- 
chere had  planned,  the  palace  of  Armida  crumbled  in  the 
dust.  Bitter,  indeed,  was  his  disappointment.  It  was 
characteristic  of  him  in  these  circumstances  to  lose  his  head 
and  throw  up  the  game.  The  reader  will  remember  how, 
as  a  boy,  he  described  his  own  character  at  the  gaming-table : 
"In  playing  even  I  failed  because,  although  I  theoretically 
discovered  systems  by  which  I  was  likely  to  win,  yet  in 
practice  I  could  command  myself  so  little  that,  upon  a  slight 
loss,  I  left  all  to  chance."  He  lacked  the  patience  or  the 
industry  of  mind  to  reconstruct  his  schemes,  and  when  Mr. 
Chamberlain  was  lost  to  the  Radical  party,  Labouchere's 
constructive  imagination  seems  never  to  have  recovered 
the  blow.  He  continued  the  war  with  abuse  of  privilege, 
absurdity  consecrated  by  tradition,  and  the  other  heads  of 
the  hydra  with  which  his  party  fought,  but  the  tone  of  his 
attacks  was  not  the  same  as  before  the  Home  Rule  split. 
Too  often  they  degenerated  into  mere  party  criticism,  the 
note  of  personal  invective,  one  might  almost  say  of  spite, 
becoming  more  prominent  in  them.  He  had  lost  faith  in 
success,  because  the  combination  by  which  he  had  hoped  to 
win  had  failed,  and  he  could  not,  or  would  not,  think  out 
another.  It  was  this  consciousness  of  failure — of  personal 
failure  as  he  saw  it,  so  closely  had  he  identified  himself  with 


228  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

his  hopes — that  inspired  the  peculiar  bitterness  with  which, 
in  and  out  of  season,  he  attacked  the  statesman  whom  he 
held  responsible  for  the  altered  situation.  He  did  not,  as 
his  correspondence  will  show,  give  up  hope  for  some  time 
of  Mr.  Chamberlain's  return  to  the  party,  but,  when  he  had 
at  last  given  up  all  such  hope,  nothing  was  too  bad  for  "Joe." 
In  the  pages  of  Truth,  in  the  Reform  Club,  in  the  lobby  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  he  constantly  held  forth  to  all  who  would 
read  or  listen  on  the  "crimes"  of  the  man  who  had  divided 
the  Liberal  party  against  itself.  He  manifested  no  such 
bitterness  against  Bright  or  Hartington;  but  when  Mr. 
Chamberlain  fell  from  grace,  he  fell  as  no  private  individual, 
but  as  the  symbol  of  the  Radical  party.  With  him,  accord- 
ing to  Labouchere,  the  party  fell,  and  with  the  party  his 
immediate  hopes  for  the  regeneration  of  England.  Those 
hopes  had,  with  ample  justification  for  their  existence,  run 
high  when  Messrs.  Chamberlain  and  Dilke  joined  Mr. 
Gladstone's  administration  in  1880.  Labouchere  based  his 
scheme  on  the  permanence  of  Mr.  Chamberlain's  Radicalism, 
and  upon  the  fact  that,  in  the  natural  course  of  events,  a 
successor  would  very  shortly  have  to  be  found  for  Mr. 
Gladstone.  Both  these,  at  the  time,  reasonable  previsions 
were  falsified  by  destiny.  Mr.  Gladstone  remained  for 
another  fourteen  years  leader  of  the  party,  and  Mr.  Cham- 
berlain became  a  Liberal  Unionist.  The  years  between 
1880  and  1887  were,  in  so  far  as  his  political  life  was  con- 
cerned, the  most  important  of  Labouchere's  life.  Until  he 
saw  that  his  game  was  finally  spoiled  by  a  totally  unexpected 
fall  of  the  cards,  he  did  not  for  one  instant  relax  his  efforts 
to  reach  the  end  towards  which  he  had  planned  to  work. 
His  patience  was  remarkable,  his  foresight  uncanny,  except 
in  the  all-important  direction  from  which  the  blow  that 
finally  shattered  his  hopes  descended. 

It  is  interesting,  in  the  light  of  subsequent  events,  to 
read  the  article  which  he  wrote  for  the  February  number  of 
the  Fortnightly  Review  in  1884,  in  which  he  set  forth  with 


HENRY  LABOUCHERE'S  RADICALISM         229 

characteristic  freedom  of  expression  his  views  upon  Radicals 
as  differing  from  Whigs.  "A  Radical,"  he  declares  early  in 
the  article,  "has  been  denned  as  an  earnest  Liberal,"  and  he 
goes  on  to  describe,  in  uncompromising  terms,  the  faith  of 
the  earnest  Liberal — or  true  Radical.  "The  Government 
Bill,"  he  wrote,  "assimilating  the  County  to  the  Borough 
Franchise  is  to  be  encouraged,  although  it  does  not  go  far 
enough,  to  the  extent,  i.e.,  of  Adult  manhood  suffrage.  It 
will  be  for  Radicals  to  take  care  strenuously  to  oppose  every 
scheme  which  is  a  sham  and  not  a  reality.  Let  us  all  who 
are  good  Liberals  labour  to  obtain  a  good  suffrage  Bill  and 
a  good  redistribution  Bill.  This  will  strengthen  our  Par- 
liamentary position,  and  we  may  fairly  anticipate  that 
Manhood  Suffrage,  electoral  districts,  triennial  Parliaments, 
and  payment  of  members  will  follow."  The  following 
extract  shows  very  clearly  Mr.  Labouchere's  opinions  on 
what  may  be  called  the  technique  of  legislation : 

"The  life  of  a  Parliament  is  too  long.  Three  years  is 
the  maximum  period  for  which  it  should  be  elected.  At  the 
end  of  this  time  it  is  out  of  touch  with  the  electorates. 
Promises  and  pledges  made  at  the  hustings  are  evaded, 
because  each  member  thinks  they  will  be  forgotten  before 
he  has  again  to  seek  the  suffrages  of  his  electors;  whilst 
Ministers  are  too  apt  to  put  off,  until  the  period  for  a  fresh 
election  approaches,  any  drastic  legislation  to  which  they 
are  pledged  as  leaders  of  their  party.  It  is  probable  that, 
were  the  duration  of  Parliament  limited  to  three  years,  as 
much  political  legislation  would  take  place  in  this  period 
as  is  now  the  case  in  the  five  or  six  years  which  is  the  average 
life  of  a  Parliament.  The  fear  of  a  speedy  reckoning  with 
electors  would  be  ever  before  the  eyes  of  Ministers  and 
members.  The  'Can't  you  leave  it  alone?'  of  Lord  Mel- 
bourne would  be  replaced  by  'We  must  do  much  and  do  it 
speedily,  for  the  day  of  reckoning  is  near  at  hand. '  Long 
Parliaments  are  as  fatal  to  sound  business  as  long  credits 
are  to  sound  trade.  It  is  questionable,  indeed,  whether 


230  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

three  years  is  not  too  long  for  the  duration  of  a  Parliament. 
We  should  move  in  all  probability  more  quickly,  were  the 
nation  to  insist  upon  an  annual  stocktaking." 

The  arguments,  from  the  democratic  point  of  view,  in 
favour  of  the  payment  of  members  are  thus  set  forth : 

"The  payment  of  members  would  do  more  to  democratise 
our  legislature,  and  consequently  our  legislation,  than  any 
other  measure  that  can  be  conceived.  At  present,  members, 
as  a  rule,  are  rich  men.  Many  of  them  mean  well,  but  they 
fatally  take  a  rich  man's  view  of  all  matters,  and  are  far  too 
much  inclined  to  think  that  everything  is  for  the  best  in  a 
world  where,  although  there  may  be  many  blanks,  they  at 
least  have  drawn  a  prize  in  life's  lottery.  So  long  as  the 
choice  of  the  poor  men  is  between  this  and  that  rich  man,  so 
long  will  our  legislation  run  in  the  groove  of  class  prejudice. 
The  poor  man  will  not  be  the  social  equal  of  the  rich  man, 
and  our  laws  will  be  made  rather  with  a  view  to  the  happiness 
and  interests  of  the  few  than  of  the  many.  All  who  are 
Conservative  in  heart  know  this,  and  for  this  reason  the 
payment  of  members,  which  is  the  natural  outcome  of  a 
recognition  that  a  labourer  is  worthy  of  his  hire,  finds  in 
them  such  bitter  opponents.  If  a  Minister  is  paid  for  being 
a  Minister,  it  is  only  logical  that  a  member  should  be  paid 
for  being  a  member.  People  must  live.  To  refuse  payment 
to  members  is  to  limit  the  choice  of  electorates  to  those  very 
men  who  are  not  likely  to  see  things  with  the  same  eyes  as 
the  majority  of  the  men  who  constitute  the  electorates. 
Parliaments  should  be  composed  of  rich  men  and  of  poor 
men.  No  one  would  advocate  the  exclusion  of  rich  men. 
Why,  then,  should  a  condition  of  things  continue  which 
practically  results  in  the  exclusion  of  the  poor  man?" 

Never  has  the  Radical  view  of  the  House  of  Lords  and 
the  Crown  been  more  forcibly  expressed  than  in  the  following : 

"The  Whigs  seem  to  know  that is  in  favour  of  the 

abolition  of  a  House  of  hereditary  legislators.  Let  us  hope 
that  they  are  correct.  We  are  frequently  told  that  the 


HENRY  LABOUCHERE'S  RADICALISM         231 

people  love,  honour,  and  respect  the  House  of  Lords.  Let 
any  one  who  entertains  this  notion  allude  to  this  assembly 
at  a  popular  political  gathering  in  any  part  of  the  country, 
and  he  will  find  his  illusion  rudely  dispelled.  There  are 
earnest  Radicals  who  hold  that  there  ought  to  be  two  legis- 
lative Chambers,  and  not  one;  although  why  they  think  so, 
it  is  difficult  to  say,  for  in  every  country  where  the  two- 
Chamber  system  prevails,  either  one  of  them  has  become  a 
mere  useless  court  of  registration,  or  the  two  are  engaged  in 
perpetual  disputes,  to  the  great  detriment  of  public  business. 
No  Radical,  however,  is  in  favour  of  our  existing  Upper 
Chamber.  If  he  were,  he  would  not  be  a  Radical.  What 
an  hereditary  legislator  ought  to  be  is  well  described  by 
Burke  in  his  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Bedford.  What  our 
hereditary  legislators  are  we  know  by  bitter  experience. 
They  almost  all  belong  to  one  particular  class — that  of  the 
great  landlords.  When  any  attempt  is  made  to  deal  with 
the  gross  absurdities  of  our  land  system,  they  rally  almost 
to  a  man  to  its  defence,  not  from  natural  depravity,  but 
from  the  natural  bias  of  every  one  to  consider  that  what 
benefits  him  must  be  for  the  best.  The  majority  of  them 
are  Conservatives;  even  those  who  call  themselves  Liberals 
are  the  mildest  of  Whigs.  When  a  Conservative  Administra- 
tion is  in  power  they  are  harmless  for  good  or  evil.  When 
a  Liberal  Administration  is  in  power  they  are  actively  evil. 
Such  an  administration  represents  the  deliberate  will  of  the 
nation.  Before  bringing  in  a  Bill,  however,  it  has  to  be 
toned  down,  lest  it  should  meet  with  opposition  in  the  Lords. 
Nevertheless  it  does  meet  with  opposition  there.  The  Lords 
do  not  throw  it  out,  but  emasculate  it  with  amendments; 
then  when  it  comes  back  to  the  Commons  a  bargain  is  struck 
that,  if  the  Commons  will  agree  to  some  of  these  amendments, 
the  Lords  will  not  insist  upon  the  others.  Thus,  no  matter 
what  may  be  the  majority  possessed  by  a  Liberal  ministry 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  it  can  never  legislate  as  it  wishes, 
but  in  a  sense  between  what  it  wishes  and  what  the  Conserva- 


232  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

tive  majority  in  the  Lords  wish.  In  great  and  important 
questions  it  almost  always  obeys  its  Leader  like  a  flock  of 
sheep,  and  thus  one  man  is  able  to  provoke  a  dissolution, 
not  only  when  he  thinks  that  this  is  in  the  interests  of  the 
country,  but  when  he  imagines  it  to  be  in  the  interests  of 
his  party.  It  is  asserted  that  the  House  of  Lords  is  useful 
because  its  rejection  of  a  Bill  is  an  appeal  to  the  country 
against  a  House  of  Commons  which  is  acting  in  opposition 
to  the  popular  will.  It  is  not  easy  to  understand  on  what 
grounds  the  Lords  are  supposed  to  know  what  the  popular 
will  is ;  and,  indeed,  they  never  do,  for  there  is  not  one  single 
case  on  record  where,  when  the  Lords  have  appealed  to  the 
country  against  a  decision  of  the  House  of  Commons,  the 
verdict  has  gone  in  favour  of  the  former.  Although  rich, 
the  peers  are  not  independent.  They  are,  in  fact,  remark- 
able for  their  abnormal  greed.  Because  they  are  by  the 
chance  of  birth  legislators,  they  insist  upon  decorations, 
distinctions,  and  salaries  being  showered  upon  them  and 
their  relations.  In  the  Financial  Reform  Almanack  for 
this  year  there  is  an  interesting  calculation  of  the  amounts 
that  living  dukes,  marquises,  and  earls,  and  their  relations, 
and  those  that  have  died  since  1850,  have  received  out  of 
the  public  exchequer.  The  dukes  figure  for  £9,760,000, 
the  marquises  for  £8,305,950,  and  the  earls  for  £48,181,292; 
total  £66,247,242.  The  voracity  of  a  vestryman  is  nothing 
to  compare  with  that  of  the  British  nobleman.  Eighty- 
three  peers  are  privy  councillors ;  55  have  received  decorations ; 
192  are  connected  with  the  army  and  navy;  62  are  railway 
directors;  their  total  rental  is  £11,872,333,  and  they  possess 
14,251,132  acres;  yet  in  pay  and  pensions  they  absorb 
annually  £639,865,  and  whenever  there  is  a  change  of  ad- 
ministration they  clamour  for  well-paid  sinecures  about  the 
Court,  and  other  such  sops,  like  a  pack  of  hungry  hounds. 
Les  soutiens  de  VEtat  indeed!  Comme  une  corde  soutient 
un  pendu!  The  greater  number  of  them  are  obscure  thanes, 
who  never  take  an  active  part  in  legislation  or  attend  in  their 


HENRY  LABOUCHERE'S  RADICALISM         233 

seats;  and  they  are  summoned  to  London  by  their  party 
leader  whenever  it  is  necessary  to  vote  down  some  Liberal 
enactment,  which  has  been  passed  after  long  and  careful 
consideration  by  the  elected  representatives  of  the  nation, 
and  for  this  service  to  the  State  they  generally  insist  upon 
receiving  an  equivalent — a  ribbon,  a  Lord  Lieutenancy,  or 
an  office  for  a  relative  or  a  dependent.  .  .  . 

"Radicals  are  essentially  practical,  and  are  not  accus- 
tomed to  waste  or  misdirect  their  energies.  They  do  not 
approve  of  the  fuss  and  feathers  of  a  Court,  and  they  regard 
its  ceremonies  with  scant  respect,  for  they  are  inclined  to 
think  that  they  conduce  to  a  servile  spirit,  which  is  degrad- 
ing to  humanity.  They  admit,  however,  that  the  scheme 
of  a  monarch  who  reigns  but  does  not  rule  has  its  advantages 
in  an  empire  such  as  ours,  where  a  connecting  link  between 
the  mother  country  and  the  colonies  is  desirable.  Their 
objection  to  the  present  state  of  things  is  mainly  based  upon 
financial  grounds.  Admitting  that  there  is  to  be  a  hereditary 
figure-head,  they  cannot  understand  why  it  should  cost  so 
much,  why  funds  which  are  voted  to  the  monarch  should  be 
expended  in  salaries  to  noblemen  for  the  performance  of 
ceremonial  service,  or  why  the  children  of  the  monarch 
should  receive  such  enormous  annuities."  He  quoted  an 
occasion  when  the  disloyalty  of  Radicals  was  supposed  to 
have  been  amply  proved.  One  of  them  had  voted  for  an 
amendment  of  Sir  Charles  Dilke  when  Lord  Beaconsfield's 
Government  had  proposed  an  allowance  of  £25,000  per 
annum  to  the  Duke  of  Connaught.  "It  would  have  been 
more  to  the  purpose  to  show,"  he  said,  "why  this  young 
gentleman  should  receive  so  very  ample  a  pension  for  con- 
descending to  be  the  son  of  his  parents.  Nothing  has 
conduced  more  to  shake  that  decent  respect  for  the  living 
symbol  of  the  State,  which  goes  by  the  name  of  royalty, 
than  the  ever-recurring  rattle  of  the  money-box.  Radicals 
do  not  perceive  why  the  children  of  the  monarch  should  be 
made  public  pensioners  any  more  than  the  children  of  the 


234  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

Lord  Chancellor.  They  know  that  Her  Majesty  lives  in 
retirement,  and  that  she  has  a  wholesome  contempt  for  the 
costly  ceremonies  of  a  Court ;  they  are  aware  that  as  a  neces- 
sary consequence  she  has  sufficient  accumulations  to  keep 
her  children  in  comfort.  They  ask,  therefore,  why  their 
maintenance  should  be  thrown  on  the  country,  and  why,  if 
so,  this  should  be  on  so  very  costly  a  scale.  They  consider, 
it  is  true,  that  Her  Majesty  has  too  large  a  Civil  List;  yet 
although  they  are  not  deceived  by  the  'pious  fraud'  which 
assumes  that  the  monarch  is  the  owner  of  the  Crown  domains 
and  surrenders  them  on  accession  to  the  throne  in  considera- 
tion of  a  money  equivalent  for  what  they  produce,  they  have 
no  burning  desire  to  interfere  with  existing  arrangements 
during  the  lifetime  of  the  present  incumbent,  for  they  have 
a  sincere  respect  for  the  Queen,  not  only  as  the  constitutional 
head  of  the  State,  but  also  on  account  of  her  excellent  per- 
sonal qualities.  They  are  of  opinion,  however,  that  when 
provision  is  asked  for  the  eldest  son  of  the  Prince  of  Wales, 
this  will  be  a  fitting  opportunity  to  inaugurate  an  entire 
change  in  the  financial  relations  of  the  Crown  with  the 
country." 

The  Established  Church,  education,  and  the  Land  Laws 
are  thus  drastically  treated. 

"  The  income  of  the  Establishment  is  close  upon  £5,000,- 
ooo  per  annum.  It  is  the  Church  of  a  minority.  The  greater 
portion  of  its  revenues  were  acquired  by  confiscation.  Its 
division  of  them  amongst  its  clergy  is  in  defiance  of  all  rule 
and  justice.  Cures  of  souls  are  matters  of  public  barter. 
Only  the  other  day  the  secretary  of  a  race-course  company 
bought  the  next  presentation  to  a  living  in  order  to  ensure 
that  the  views  of  the  next  pastor  should  be  sound  on  the 
question  of  racing.  In  every  country  except  this  the  prin- 
ciple has  been  recognised  that  so-called  ecclesiastical  pro- 
perty is  national  property.  In  some  countries  this  principle 
has  been  pushed  to  its  ultimate  consequences,  in  others  it 
has  received  a  more  restricted  application.  Were  we  all 


HENRY  LABOUCHERE'S  RADICALISM         235 

members  of  the  Established  Church  there  might  be  some 
plea  for  our  devoting  a  portion  of  our  property  to  the  main- 
tenance of  the  Church's  employes.  But  the  majority  of  us 
are  not  churchmen.  Why  then  should  we  perpetuate  so 
invidious  an  application  of  national  funds?  The  vested 
rights  of  living  incumbents  should  be  respected,  and  perhaps 
it  would  be  only  fair  that  the  Church  should  retain  those 
funds  that  she  has  received  from  the  liberality  of  private 
donors  within  the  last  few  years.  On  an  excessive  estimate 
this  would  amount  to  £1,000,000  per  annum.  We  require 
the  remaining  £4,000,000  per  annum  for  educational  pur- 
poses, and  we  mean  to  have  them.  .  .  . 

"Whilst  all  Radicals  are  agreed  that  our  land  system 
requires  a  thorough  reform,  all  are  perhaps  not  in  accord  as 
to  the  details  of  that  reform.  Some  are  followers  of  Mr. 
George  and  demand  the  nationalisation  of  land;  others — 
and  these  are  the  wiser — whilst  admitting  that  it  is  to  be 
regretted  that  the  paramount  proprietorship  of  the  com- 
munity has  been  almost  entirely  ignored,  hardly  see  their 
way  to  resume  it  absolutely,  nor  do  they  admit  that  a  person 
who  has  acquired  a  legal  title  to  a  freehold  can  be  divested 
of  it  without  fair  compensation.  All,  however,  are  agreed 
that  real  estate  has,  in  contradistinction  to  personal  estate, 
certain  inherent  qualities:  it  is  limited  in  quantity,  and  it  is 
a  natural  instrument;  consequently,  the  State  has  a  right 
to  regulate  the  conditions  of  its  tenure,  and  its  transmission 
from  one  individual  to  another.  We  would  legislate  to 
break  up  and  destroy  all  huge  domains;  to  make  the  occupier 
to  all  practical  intents  the  master  of  the  soil  which  he  culti- 
vates, and  to  secure  to  him  not  only  fixity  of  tenure  and 
independence  of  a  landlord's  rules  and  caprices,  but  the 
enjoyment  of  these  rights  at  a  fair  and  reasonable  price. 
A  long  succession  of  landlord  legislatures  have,  in  the  words 
of  Mr.  Cobden,  'robbed  and  bamboozled  the  people  for 
ages. '  All  our  laws  affecting  land  have  been  made  in  order 
to  perpetuate  its  tenure  in  the  hands  of  the  few  from  genera- 


236  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

tion  to  generation;  to  render  its  purchase  difficult  and  ex- 
pensive; to  free  its  owners  from  taxes  and  obligations,  in 
consideration  of  which  their  predecessors  acquired  lordship 
over  it  from  the  State;  and  to  give  it  an  artificial  value  by 
securing  to  its  possessors  social  and  political  pre-eminence. 
That  there  should  be  few  Radicals  amongst  landlords  is  less 
surprising  than  that  any  one  who  is  not  a  landlord  should 
remain  outside  the  Radical  pale.  To  suppose  that  when 
Radicals  have  the  power  to  place  our  land  laws  in  harmony 
with  the  good  of  the  greatest  numbers,  or  to  imagine  that 
they  will  allow  the  imperia  in  imperio  of  huge  domains  to 
continue,  is  to  suppose  that  they  will  take  to  their  heart  of 
hearts  their  'robbers  and  bamboozlers.'  Landlords  are  a 
mistake  socially,  politically,  and  economically.  The  only 
true  proprietary  rights  in  land  are  a  reasonable  interest  on 
sums  spent  in  rendering  it  more  productive,  and  this  only 
so  long  as  the  outlay  continues  to  produce  this  result;  to 
talk  of  any  other  natural  proprietary  rights  is  as  absurd  as 
it  would  be  to  talk  of  a  man  having  a  natural  property  in 
the  air  that  we  breathe.  It  is  too  late  now,  however,  to 
revert  to  first  principles.  We  must  accept  facts  and  endeav- 
our to  make  the  best  of  them.  This  we  propose  to  do,  and, 
as  a  preliminary  step,  we  demand  the  renewed  imposition 
of  the  land-tax  at  four  shillings  in  the  pound  upon  the  full 
true  yearly  value  at  a  rack  rent;  that  there  should  be  no 
more  subventions  in  aid  of  local  taxation  from  imperial 
funds  largely  derived  from  taxation  on  food  and  drink;  and 
that  landlords  who  will  not  use  their  land  themselves  should 
be  made  to  give  it  up  to  those  who  are  ready  and  anxious  to 
use  it." 

Towards  the  end  of  the  article  Mr.  Labouchere  delivers 
himself  somewhat  tentatively  on  the  Irish  question  as 
follows: 

"  It  was  said  in  the  first  session  of  the  present  Parliament 
— and  no  one  was  more  fond  of  using  this  argument  than 
Mr.  Gladstone — that  the  limited  number  of  Mr.  Parnell's 


HENRY  LABOUCHERE'S  RADICALISM         237 

Parliamentary  followers  proved  that  the  majority  of  the 
constituencies  was  not  with  him.  Later  on,  when  the  error 
of  this  estimate  of  his  strength  was  perceived,  it  was  alleged 
that  his  influence  was  alone  secured  by  terrorism.  Slowly 
it  had  dawned  upon  the  English  mind  that  the  vast  majority 
of  Irishmen,  rightly  or  wrongly,  cordially  and  truly  sym- 
pathise with  him.  No  one  now  questions  that  he  will  sweep 
Ireland  at  the  next  General  Election.  On  the  doctrine  of 
probabilities,  this  will  make  him  the  arbiter  between  parties 
at  St.  Stephen's.  How  is  this  to  be  met?  The  only  sug- 
gestion put  forward  as  yet  has  been  that  both  parties  should 
agree  that  the  Irish  vote  is  not  to  count  on  a  party  division. 
But  does  any  sane  human  being  imagine  that  such  a  scheme 
is  practicable?  The  'ins'  would  always  assent  to  it,  but  the 
'outs'  would  defer  their  assent  until  they  became  the  'ins.' 
It  is  indeed  becoming  every  day  more  and  more  clear  that 
we  must  either  allow  the  Irish  votes  to  reckon  as  other  votes, 
or  that  we  must  boldly  assert  that  Ireland  shall  no  longer 
be  represented  in  Parliament,  because  we  disagree  with  the 
representatives  that  it  chooses.  There  is  no  middle  course; 
and,  if  we  accept  the  former,  we  shall  have  to  allow  Ireland 
hereafter  to  decide  as  she  best  pleases  on  matters  that  only 
locally  regard  her.  Most  Radicals  would  be  of  opinion  that 
one  Parliament  for  the  entire  United  Kingdom  is  a  better 
system  that  one  for  Great  Britain  and  another  for  Ireland. 
But  they  would  go  a  long  way  to  establish  a  fair  modus 
vivendi  between  the  two  islands,  and  nothing  that  Mr.  Par- 
nell  has  ever  said  can  be  adduced  to  show  that  he  does  not 
entertain  the  same  desire.  Most  of  his  views  recommend 
themselves  to  Radicals,  especially  those  in  regard  to  land. 
...  If  the  Irish  wish  for  Home  Rule  why  should  they  not 
have  it?  It  surely  would  be  easy  to  conceive  a  plan  in  which 
that  island  would  have  a  representative  assembly  that  would 
legislate  upon  all  matters,  except  those  reserved  to  the 
Imperial  Parliament.  These  reservations  might  be  pre- 
cisely the  same  as  those  which  the  American  Constitution 


238  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

reserves  to  Congress  in  her  relations  with  State  Govern- 
ments. Mr.  Gladstone  seemed  inclined  to  accept  this 
solution  in  1882,  for,  in  a  speech  during  the  session  of  that 
year,  he  asked  the  Irish  members  to  submit  their  plan  to  the 
House  of  Commons,  whilst  the  only  objection  that  occurred 
to  him  was,  that  it  might  be  difficult  to  find  an  arbiter  be- 
tween the  Imperial  and  the  Irish  legislature  in  case  of  any 
conflict  of  jurisdiction — a  difficulty  which  a  cursory  glance 
at  the  American  Constitution  would  have  solved.  The 
Irish  are  sound  upon  almost  every  question;  they  are  even 
more  democratically  inclined  than  we  are.  We  want  their 
aid  and  they  want  our  aid.  Irish,  English,  and  Scotch  Radi- 
cals should  coalesce.  Mutual  concessions  may  be  necessary, 
but  this  is  always  the  case  in  political  alliances.  That  the 
Irish  should  not  love  the  English  connection  is  hardly  sur- 
prising. We  are  only  now  beginning  to  do  them  justice, 
and  we  have  accompanied  this  modicum  of  justice  with  a 
Coercion  Act,  aimed  not  only  at  crime,  but  at  legitimate 
political  agitation.  If  we  remove  their  grievances,  if  we 
make  Irishmen  the  true  rulers  of  Ireland,  and  if  we  cease 
to  meddle  in  matters  that  concern  them  and  not  us,  there 
is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  they  would  wish  to  separate 
from  us  any  more  than  our  colonies.  Separation  would, 
indeed,  be  as  disadvantageous  to  them  as  to  us." 

A  year  or  two  later  he  gave  clear  expression  to  the  same 
Radical  faith  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  a  speech  which  he 
made  on  his  own  amendment  to  the  motion  that  Mr.  Speaker 
do  now  leave  the  chair:  "That  in  the  opinion  of  this  House 
it  is  contrary  to  the  true  principles  of  representative  Govern- 
ment, and  injurious  to  their  efficiency,  that  any  person 
should  be  a  member  of  one  House  of  the  Legislature  by  right 
of  birth,  and  it  is  therefore  desirable  to  put  an  end  to  any 
such  existing  rights."  "It  has  been  pointed  out  to  him," 
he  said,  "that  these  words  might  include  Her  Majesty, 
which,  of  course,  was  not  intended  .  .  .  they  had  been 
engaged  in  democratising,  as  far  as  they  could,  the  Commons 


HENRY  LABOUCHERE'S  RADICALISM         239 

branch  of  the  Legislature;  but  all  their  efforts  would  be 
abortive,  all  their  efforts  at  Parliamentary  reform  would  be 
illusory,  if  they  allowed  side  by  side  with  that  House  a 
Legislative  Assembly  to  exist,  which,  in  its  nature,  was 
aristocratic,  and  which  had  a  right  to  tamper  with  and  veto 
the  decisions  of  the  nation,  which  were  registered  by  the 
House  of  Commons.  .  .  .  Members  of  the  House  of  Lords 
were  neither  elected  nor  selected  for  their  merits.  They  sat 
by  the  merits  of  their  ancestors,  and,  if  we  looked  into  the 
merits  of  some  of  those  ancestors,  we  should  agree  that  the 
less  said  about  them  the  better.  The  House  of  Lords  con- 
sisted of  a  class  most  dangerous  to  the  community — the 
class  of  rich  men,  the  greater  part  of  whose  fortune  was  in 
land.  It  was  asserted  of  them  that  the  House  of  Lords  was 
recruited  from  the  wisest  and  best  in  the  country — that  the 
Lords  were  so  wise  and  good  that,  in  some  mysterious  way, 
they  were  able  to  transmit  their  virtues  to  future  generations 
in  secula  seculorum.  The  practice  in  the  selection  of  those 
gentlemen  was  not  quite  in  accordance  with  this  theory. 
They  consisted  generally  of  two  classes — of  those  who  were 
apparently  successful  politicians,  and  of  those  who  were 
undoubtedly  successful  money-grubbers.  He  would  take 
a  few  examples,  and,  as  he  did  not  wish  to  be  invidious,  he 
would  take  them  from  both  sides  of  the  House.  They  all 
knew  and  appreciated  Sir  R.  Assheton  Cross,  Mr.  Sclater 
Booth,  Sir  Thomas  Brassey,  and  Mr.  Knatchbull-Hugessen. 
What  did  they  think  of  these  gentlemen?  As  members  of 
this  House  everybody  respected  and  liked  them;  but  they 
were  looked  upon  as  decent  sort  of  mediocrities  of  the  ordin- 
ary quality,  which  was  converted,  in  course  of  time,  into 
administrative  Ministers.  Take  another  class.  Why  were 
brewers  selected  as  peers?  Simply  because  they,  of  late, 
had  accumulated  very  large  fortunes  by  the  sale  of  intoxicat- 
ing liquors,  and  for  no  other  reason.  The  names  of  Guinness, 
Bass,  and  Allsopp  had  been  long  household  words  in  every 
public  house  in  the  country,  but  who  ever  heard  of  them  as 


240  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

politicians?  Yet  these  gentlemen  were  considered  to  be  the 
very  best  men  in  the  country  to  be  converted  into  hereditary 
peers.  Another  class  who  made  money  were  the  financiers. 
Lord  Rothschild  inherited  a  large  fortune,  and  had  increased 
that  fortune,  and  no  doubt  spent  his  money  in  the  most 
honourable  way;  but  Lord  Rothschild  did  nothing  in  the 
House  of  Commons  in  any  way  to  distinguish  himself. 
With  brewers,  when  one  was  made  a  peer  another  must  be 
made  a  peer  for  advertisement.  So  with  financial  houses; 
when  a  Rothschild  was  made  a  peer,  it  was  necessary  to  fish 
up  some  one  of  the  name  of  Baring,  and  one  was  converted 
into  Lord  Revelstoke — a  gentleman  who,  though  probably 
eminent  in  city  circles,  was  hardly  known  to  any  one  in  that 
House,  and  who  had  never  taken  part  in  politics.  So  much 
for  the  composition  of  the  House  of  Lords.  .  .  .  Deducting 
representative  peers  from  Scotland  and  Ireland,  and  deduct- 
ing members  of  the  Royal  family,  and  deducting  bishops 
and  archbishops,  he  found  470  peers  sitting  as  hereditary 
peers  in  the  House  of  Lords.  He  found  that  those  peers 
had  annually  distributed  among  them  £389,163,  amounting 
on  an  average  to  £820  each  (salaries  from  appointments 
under  Civil  List) — these  rich  men  who  would,  with  one  ac- 
cord, protest  against  the  payment  of  members  of  the  House 
of  Commons.  These  were  the  rich  men  who  were  found 
at  public  meetings  denouncing  members  from  Ireland  as  a 
wretched  crew,  because,  being  mainly  poor  men,  they  re- 
ceived enough  to  enable  them  to  live  from  their  constituents. 
The  peers  were  almost  as  careful  of  their  relations  as  of 
themselves.  In  a  valuable  publication  he  saw  it  put  down 
that,  from  1874  to  1886,  no  fewer  than  7000  relatives  of  peers 
had  had  places  of  emolument  under  the  Government.  .  .  . 
In  the  other  House  there  were  120  Privy  Councillors,  of 
whom  he  ventured  to  say  the  majority  had  never  heard. 
Orders  had  to  be  found  for  these  gentlemen.  Almost  every 
one  of  them  had  a  decoration.  There  were  three  decorations 
which  were  absolutely  made  for  peers  and  for  no  other  body — 


HENRY  LABOUCHERE'S  RADICALISM         241 

the  Garter,  the  Order  of  St.  Patrick,  and  the  Thistle.  Wai- 
pole  had  declined  a  decoration  '  because, '  he  said, '  why  bribe 
myself?'  Lord  Melbourne  said  of  the  Garter  that  its  pleas- 
ing feature  was  that  there  was  '  no  nonsense  of  merit  about 
it. '  An  impression  existed  that  private  Bill  legislation  was 
more  independent  in  the  House  of  Lords  than  in  that  House. 
He  did  not  think  it  was.  .  .  .  No  men  looked  better  after 
the  class  interests  of  those  to  whom  they  belonged  than  the 
peers.  They  were  great  landowners;  16,000,000  acres  be- 
longed to  them.  Yet  our  Land  Laws  were  a  disgrace  to  the 
country  and  tainted  with  feudalism.  .  .  .  This  House  of 
Lords  was  not  collectively  any  worse  than  any  six  hundred 
men  would  be.  They  were  ex  necessitate  a  Tory  House  and 
a  House  of  partisans.  The  assertion  that  they  subordinated 
public  interests  to  their  private  class  and  party  interests 
was  merely  tantamount  to  saying  that  they  were  human 
beings.  A  House  of  Artisans  would  act  on  similar  principles. 
.  .  .  His  amendment  went  to  the  root  of  the  evil.  He  at 
first  thought  of  including  bishops,  but  he  struck  them  out  on 
the  principle  of  de  minimis  non  curat  lex.  If  the  hereditary 
principle  were  done  away  with,  what  the  honourable  mem- 
ber for  Birmingham  called  'the  incestuous  union  between 
the  spiritual  and  the  political  world'  would  cease  of  itself. 
His  amendment  would  not  prejudice  the  question  of  whether 
there  ought  to  be  two  Chambers  or  one  only.  Personally 
he  was  in  favour  of  one,  but  those  who  voted  with  him  need 
not  necessarily  support  him  on  that  particular  point.  Other 
countries  which  had  two  had  simply  followed  our  example, 
and  it  was  a  mere  result  of  chance  that  we  happened  to  have 
two.  If  they  agreed,  the  second  was  useless;  if  they  dis- 
agreed, the  second  was  pernicious.  If  the  functions  of  an 
Upper  Chamber  were  to  be  properly  fulfilled  by  those  who 
soared  above  party  and  class  interest,  we  must  not  look  for 
its  members  in  this  world,  but  we  must  bring  down  angels 
from  Heaven ;  but,  as  that  would  be  difficult,  there  was  one 
other  alternative.  The  Conservatives  at  their  meetings 

16 


242  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

always  shouted,  'Thank  God  we  have  a  House  of  Lords!' 
Radicals  had  no  intention  to  remain  any  longer  supinely 
like  toads  under  the  harrow  of  the  House  of  Lords.  They 
intended  to  agitate  until  they  could  say:  'Thank  God  we 
have  not  an  hereditary  House  of  Lords!' 

Mr.  Labouchere's  amendment  on  that  occasion  was 
defeated  by  a  majority  of  61  in  a  House  of  385  members. 
On  November  21,  1884,  Labouchere  had  moved  the  following 
resolution:  "That  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  Conservative 
party  is  able  and  has  for  many  years  been  able,  through  its 
permanent  majority  in  the  House  of  Lords,  to  alter,  defeat, 
or  delay  legislation,  although  that  legislation  has  been  recom- 
mended by  the  responsible  advisers  of  the  Crown,  and  ap- 
proved by  the  nation  through  its  elected  representatives, 
it  is  desirable  to  make  such  alterations  in  the  relations  of  the 
two  Houses  of  Parliament  as  will  effect  a  remedy  to  this 
state  of  things."  Sir  Wilfrid  Lawson,  in  seconding  the 
resolution,  said  that  he  remembered  a  few  years  ago  Mr. 
Labouchere  giving  notice  of  a  very  similar  resolution.  He 
asked  him  if  he  thought  a  House  could  be  made  for  it.  Mr. 
Labouchere  had  answered,  "No,  I  do  not  think  there  will 
be,  for  all  the  Radicals  want  to  be  made  peers."  The  mem- 
ber for  Northampton  prophesied  truly,  for  not  forty  members 
could  be  got  to  come  down. 

With  untiring  patience,  however,  Mr.  Labouchere  moved 
a  resolution  of  the  same  nature  almost  every  year  that  he 
was  in  Parliament.  His  perseverance  on  the  subject  was 
only  matched  by  the  dogged  persistence  with  which  he 
attacked  the  ridiculous  appurtenances  inseparable  from  the 
upkeep  of  a  constitutional  monarchy.  When  he  was  asked 
by  Captain  Fred  Burnaby  once  at  Homburg  why  he  was 
always  attacking  the  Royal  family,  who  after  all  were  well 
meaning  people,  he  replied:  "One  must  find  some  very  solid 
institution  to  be  able  to  attack  it  in  comfort.  If  the  love 
of  royalty  were  not  so  firmly  established  in  the  middle-class 
English  breast,  I  should  not  dream  of  attacking  it,  for  the 


HENRY  LABOUCHERE'S  RADICALISM         243 

institution  might  topple  over,  and  then  what  should  I  do? 
I  should  have  all  the  trouble  of  finding  something  else  to 
tilt  against." 

Another  expression  of  his  views  on  the  Establishment  is 
found  in  his  speech  on  Mr.  Albert  Grey's  amendment  on  the 
occasion  of  the  Second  Reading  of  the  Church  Patronage 
Bill.  "From  a  Radical  standpoint,"  he  said,  "it  was  un- 
desirable that  there  should  be  an  Establishment  at  all,  and 
there  seemed  to  be  no  reason  why  they  should  be  continually 
tinkering  up  and  remedying  this  and  that  abuse  in  connection 
with  the  Church.  ...  He  agreed  with  the  Secretary  of 
State  that  this  Bill  did  not  go  far  enough,  if  it  granted  com- 
pensation in  the  case  of  those  who  now  held  livings.  To  sell 
a  cure  of  souls  had  always  been  regarded  as  a  most  monstrous 
iniquity,  and  why  should  they  give  compensation  to  those 
who  were  enjoying  what  was  wrong?  They  might  as  well 
suggest  that  Simon  Magus  himself  should  have  had  com- 
pensation. There  was  another  preposterous  clause  in  the 
Bill.  These  advowsons  could  only  be  sold  to  the  great 
landlords  and  the  lords  of  the  manor.  If  the  livings  were 
sold  at  all,  they  should  be  sold  to  anybody  who  might  be 
ready  to  buy  them.  But  why  should  the  great  landlords — 
the  race  he  should  be  glad  to  see  cleared  off  the  land — why 
should  the  great  landlords  and  lords  of  the  manor  be  allowed 
to  buy  livings  while  other  people  were  not?  .  .  .  There 
was  no  doubt  that  matters  would  be  infinitely  improved  if 
the  parishioners  had  the  right  to  veto  the  appointment  of 
clergymen.  But  the  amendment  did  not  go  far  enough. 
Why  was  there  only  to  be  a  veto?  Why  not  allow  the 
parishioners  to  elect  any  clergyman  they  liked?  Why  was 
the  bishop  to  be  the  only  person  to  be  allowed  to  have  a  veto? 
If  the  majority  of  the  people  in  a  locality  were  dissenters, 
he  thought  they  should  not  be  compelled  to  elect  a  Church 
of  England  clergyman.  He  was  opposed  to  all  this  tinkering 
of  the  Church  of  England,  which  should  be  disestablished 
and  disendowed.  .  .  .  He  was  quite  ready  to  leave  the 


244  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

Church  such  amounts  as  had  been  given  to  it  within  the 
last  twenty  years;  but  he  had  seen  calculations  made  that, 
deducting  these  amounts,  a  sum  of  about  £5,000,000  per 
annum  ought  to  come  to  the  public.  That  sum  was  the 
property  not  of  a  sect,  but  of  the  English  people  who  paid 
it,  and  he  should  like  to  see  a  Bill  introduced  dealing  with 
glebe  lands.  These  glebe  lands  were,  he  believed,  the  worst 
cultivated  in  the  country,  and  it  would  be  infinitely  better 
to  redistribute  them  in  allotments  amongst  the  deserving 
labourers  of  the  village  than  to  leave  them  in  the  hands  of 
the  clergymen.  When  his  honourable  friend  brought  in  a 
Bill  dealing  with  glebe  lands,  and  giving  back  to  them  the 
£5,000,000  of  which  they  were  now  deprived  for  the  benefit 
of  a  sect,  then  he  would  give  him  his  most  cordial  support." 
And  so  on. 

In  the  June  of  1884  he  made  one  of  his  common-sense 
speeches  on  the  subject  of  the  enfranchisement  of  women. 
It  occurred  during  the  debate  on  the  Representation  of  the 
People  Bill.  "It  may  be  that  we  should  enfranchise  women," 
he  said,  "but  because  we  have  enfranchised  men  is  no  reason 
that  we  should  do  so.  We  may  discuss  the  subject  elo- 
quently, we  may  refer  to  Joan  of  Arc  and  Boadicea,  but, 
in  point  of  fact,  from  the  time  of  Eve  till  now  there  has  been 
a  distinct  difference  between  men  and  women.  There  are 
a  great  many  things  which  I  am  ready  to  admit  women  can 
do  better  than  men,  and  there  are  other  things  which  I  think 
men  can  do  better  than  women.  Each  have  their  separate 
functions,  and  the  question  is  whether  the  function  of  elec- 
toral power  is  a  function  which  women  would  adequately 
discharge.  I  do  not  think  it  is.  As  yet  I  understand  that 
no  country  has  really  given  women  the  vote;  and  were  it 
not  that  honourable  gentlemen  opposite,  who  are  generally 
averse  to  giving  the  franchise  to  any  large  body  of  men, 
think,  and  think  justly,  that  a  very  large  majority  of  women 
would  vote  for  Conservatives,  I  should  be  surprised  at  their 
making  this  desperate  leap  in  the  dark.  Some  honourable 


HENRY  LABOUCHERE'S  RADICALISM         245 

members  on  this  side  of  the  House  have  told  us  that  women 
are  better  than  men.  That  is  the  language  of  poetry.  But 
when  we  come  to  facts  I  am  not  at  all  disposed  to  admit  that 
women  are  better  than  men.  It  is  not  a  question  of  whether 
women  are  angels  or  not,  but  whether  they  will  make  good 
electors  .  .  .  the  honourable  member  has  told  us  that  he 
was  convinced  of  this  because  Queen  Anne  was  a  great  queen ; 
and  he  told  us  also  that  Elizabeth  was  a  great  queen.  But 
Anne  was  not  a  great  queen,  and  Elizabeth  had  the  intellect 
of  a  man  with  the  weaknesses  of  a  woman.  The  honourable 
member  also  spoke  of  Queen  Christina  of  Sweden,  but  every 
one  knows  that  she  was  one  of  the  most  execrable  queens 
that  ever  lived,  for,  after  being  deposed  by  her  subjects, 
she  went  to  Paris  and  murdered  her  secretary.  We  learn 
that,  by  the  operation  of  nature,  more  women  are  born  into 
the  world  than  men,  that  women  live  longer  than  men,  and 
that  a  considerable  number  of  men  leave  the  kingdom  as 
soldiers  and  sailors,  while  women  remain  at  home.  In 
consequence  of  this  there  are,  at  any  given  moment,  a  greater 
number  of  women  than  men  in  the  country.  I  am  told  that 
in  every  county,  with  the  exception  of  Hampshire,  more 
women  would  be  put  on  the  register  than  men  if  we  had 
woman  suffrage.  And  what  would  be  the  consequence?  They 
would  look  to  the  interests  of  women ;  they  would  band  them- 
selves together,  and  we  should  have  them,  of  course,  asking  to 
be  admitted  to  this  House;  and  then,  if  they  were  admitted, 
instead  of  being  on  an  equality  with  them,  we  should  put 
ourselves  under  petticoat  government ;  we  should  have  women 
opposite,  women  on  these  benches,  and  a  woman  perhaps  in 
the  chair.  They  would,  of  course,  like  women  everywhere, 
have  their  own  way.  The  honourable  member  had  hesitated 
as  to  whether  he  would  give  the  vote  to  married  women  as 
well  as  to  unmarried  women,  and,  by  his  mode  of  dealing 
with  the  question,  it  would  seem  that  he  gave  to  vice  what 
he  denied  to  virtue.  As  long  as  a  woman  remains  a  spinster, 
it  appears  that  she  is  to  have  the  vote,  but  that,  so  soon  as 


246  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

she  marries,  she  is  to  cease  to  be  an  elector;  she  is  to  lose 
her  rights  if  she  enters  into  the  holy  and  honourable  state 
of  matrimony,  and,  if  her  husband  dies,  she  is  again  to  get 
the  vote.  When  Napoleon  was  asked  by  Mme.  de  Stael 
who  was  the  best  woman  in  the  State,  he  said:  'Madame, 
the  woman  who  has  the  most  children. ' 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  above  extract  that  his  opinion 
of  the  female  sex  was  early  Victorian,  and  so  it  remained  to 
the  end  of  his  life.  He  was  always  a  bitter  opponent  of 
woman  suffrage;  and  when,  in  1896,  a  petition  for  the  Suf- 
frage signed  by  257,000  women  from  all  parts  of  the  United 
Kingdom  was  exhibited,  "by  kind  permission  of  the  Home 
Secretary,"  in  Westminster  Hall  on  a  series  of  tables  for  the 
inspection  of  members,  he  immediately  called  the  attention 
of  the  Speaker  that  afternoon  in  the  House  to  the  "unseemly 
display,"  and  insisted  upon  its  removal. 

He  was  indefatigable  in  his  efforts  to  introduce  economical 
Radical  finance  into  every  detail  of  government,  always 
assuring  his  hearers  that  he  was  fighting  for  the  principle 
of  economy,  and  not  merely  against  the  mere  absurdity  of 
the  existence  of  certain  traditional  offices  and  extravagances. 
In  1885  we  find  him  requesting  the  Attorney-General  to  do 
his  best  to  suppress  the  offices  of  Trainbearer,  Pursebearer, 
and  Clerk  of  the  Petty  Bag.  He  protested  ably  against  the 
large  sums  spent  upon  the  upkeep  of  the  royal  yacht,  and 
upon  the  "objectionable  practice"  of  asking  the  Commons 
to  vote  a  sum  of  money  for  special  packets  for  conveyance 
of  distinguished  persons  to  and  from  England.  He  pro- 
tested against  the  nation  being  asked  to  pay  the  expenses 
incurred  in  the  ceremony  of  making  the  present  King  (then 
Prince  George  of  Wales)  a  Knight  of  the  Garter.  He  was, 
in  short,  unceasingly  vigilant  wherever  the  spending  of  public 
money  was  concerned,  and  his  remarks  were  usually  practical 
and  to  the  point.  A  quotation  from  a  letter  he  wrote  to  the 
Times  in  the  same  year  on  the  Graduated  Income  Tax  will 
be  of  interest,  as  peculiarly  illustrative  of  his  clear  and  simple 


HENRY  LABOUCHERE'S  RADICALISM         247 

view  of  the  rights  of  the  poor  man  versus  those  of  the  rich 
man.  "The  income  tax,"  he  wrote,  "when  first  put  on  by 
Mr.  Pitt,  was  a  graduated  tax.  No  one  then  regarded  this 
as  a  spoliation  or  confiscation.  That  a  rich  man  should  pay 
a  higher  percentage  of  taxation  than  a  poor  man  is  based 
upon  what  Mr.  Stuart  Mill  terms  'equality  of  sacrifice.' 
It  will,  I  presume,  he  admitted  by  all  that  the  first  call  upon 
a  man's  income  is  that  portion  of  it  which  is  necessary  for 
him  and  his  family  to  eat,  to  be  clothed,  and  to  secure  some 
sort  of  home.  If  a  man  earns  only  £50  per  annum,  and  has 
an  average  family  of  two  children,  let  me  ask  what  remains 
after  this  call  has  been  met?  Nothing.  And  if  he  has  to 
pay  taxes,  he  and  his  family  are  obliged  to  go  without  a 
sufficiency  of  clothing,  or  without  a  fitting  home.  Now 
look  at  the  case  of  a  man  with  £50,000  per  annum,  and  with 
a  family  of  the  same  size.  He  pays  in  taxation  about  4>£% 
on  his  income — let  us  say  5%.  This  absorbs  £2500.  He 
may  secure  to  himself  and  them  not  only  all  necessaries,  but 
all  comforts,  for  £500  per  annum.  Surely  the  sacrifice  on 
his  part  to  the  exigencies  of  the  State  of  £7000  per  annum 
would  not  be  so  great  a  one  as  would  be  that  of  £2,  IDS.  per 
annum  by  the  man  with  an  income  of  £50  per  annum.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  rich  man  pays  at  present 
a  maximum  of  5%,  and  the  poor  man  about  twice  that 
percentage.  ..." 

He  made  a  speech  in  the  Radical  Club  at  North  Camber- 
well  on  November  14,  1885,  in  which  he  once  more  resumed 
his  creed,  and  with  it  I  must  end  this  chapter,  so  as  to  proceed 
with  the  history  of  the  practice  to  which  he  put  his  theories. 
"  In  the  House  of  Commons,"  he  said,  "  Radicals  had  hitherto 
been  in  a  very  small  minority,  and  were  not  appreciated, 
and  it  was  therefore  gratifying  to  him  as  a  strong  Radical  to 
find  what  they  did  in  the  House  of  Commons  was  appreci- 
ated by  those  who  made  the  House  of  Commons.  For  his 
own  part  he  was  bound  to  say  he  could  not  form  any  clear 
idea  of  what  'Conservative*  meant  now.  In  the  past,  Con- 


248  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

servatives  were  a  party  banded  together  to  support  the 
landed  interest,  but  Lord  Randolph  Churchill  told  them  that 
this  was  to  be  all  forgotten,  and  that  the  Conservatives  were 
to  become  Tory  Democrats.  These  two  words  were  utterly 
antagonistic  in  themselves,  and  he  could  not  understand 
how  men  could  be  fish  and  fowl  at  the  same  time.  The  only 
principle  which  was  guiding  the  Tories  was  to  get  into  office 
and  remain  there.  No  reasonable  man  could  become  a 
Conservative.  As  for  the  Whigs  they  were  more  dangerous 
than  the  Tories.  There  were  about  thirty  of  them  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  They  rarely  spoke,  but  their  influence 
— a  backstair  influence — was  such  that  Ministers  yielded  to 
them,  and  it  was  to  them  that  the  action  in  Egypt  was  due, 
and  they  were  the  cause  of  the  Crimes  Bill  in  Ireland — both 
of  which  had  been  steadfastly  opposed  by  the  Radicals  in 
Parliament.  It  was  easier  to  deal  with  an  open  enemy  than 
with  a  traitor  in  the  camp.  Happily  the  Whigs  were  expir- 
ing, and  he  did  not  think  any  one  would  care  to  adopt  their 
creed.  Coming  to  the  Radical  creed  he  said  it  was  that 
England  should  become  a  democracy,  by  which  was  meant 
the  rule  of  the  people  by  the  people  and  for  the  people.  He 
was  surprised  statesmen  could  not  see  that  the  people  would 
use  the  power  given  them  for  their  own  advantage.  They 
would  insist  on  a  Government  not  mixed,  as  now,  with  an 
aristocratic  element  in  it.  They  would  deal  with  the  entire 
Legislature,  the  Crown,  the  Lords,  and  the  Commons;  and, 
if  they  were  of  his  mind,  they  would  go  in  for  a  much  more 
sweeping  franchise.  The  vote  was  a  right  and  not  a  privi- 
lege, and  every  man,  not  a  criminal,  ought  to  possess  it, 
or  he  was  defrauded  of  his  right.  He  went  in  for  residential 
manhood  suffrage,  for  free  education,  for  which  he  would 
apply  the  Church  revenues  and  the  misused  charities.  He 
was  opposed  to  all  indirect  taxation,  and  advocated  what 
had  been  described  as  equality  of  sacrifice  in  general  and 
local  taxation — that  was,  he  would  have  a  graduated  income 
tax,  and,  in  no  case,  tax  the  necessaries  of  life.  In  conclu- 


HENRY  LABOUCHERE'S  RADICALISM         249 

sion  he  said  he  hoped  Mr.  Chamberlain  would  succeed  Mr. 
Gladstone  as  Prime  Minister,  and  as  for  the  Whigs  they  were 
welcome  to  go  over  to  the  Tories.  He  would  not  refuse  to 
accept  Lord  Harrington,  if  he  elected  to  fight  under  the 
Radical  party,  but  he  would  refuse  to  sink  his  own  personal 
opinions  for  any  one."1 

1  Times,  October  15,  1885. 


CHAPTER  XI 
IN  OPPOSITION 

(JUNE,  1885— DECEMBER,  1885) 

MR  LABOUCH  ERE  was  not  only  a  zealous  friend  and 
advocate  of  the  Irish  members  in  Parliament,  but  a 
variety  of  circumstances  conspired  with  his  own  aptitudes 
to  constitute  him  an  unofficial  ambassador  between  conflict- 
ing parties  in  the  House,  and,  in  particular,  between  the 
Liberal  Cabinet  and  the  Nationalist  leader.  "His  real 
influence,"  wrote  Sir  Henry  Lucy  recently,  "was  exercised 
beyond  the  range  of  the  Speaker's  eye.  Nothing  pleased 
him  more  than  being  engaged  in  the  lobby,  the  smoking- 
room,  x  or  a  remote  corner  of  the  corridors,  working  out  some 
little  plot.  By  conviction  a  thorough  Radical,  such  was  the 
catholicity  of  his  nature  that  he  was  on  terms  of  personal 
intimacy  with  leaders  of  every  section  of  party,  not  except- 
ing those  who  sat  on  the  Treasury  Bench.  He  was  one  of 
the  few  men — perhaps  the  only  man — whom  Parnell  treated 
with  an  approach  to  confidence.  He  watched  the  growth 
of  the  Fourth  Party  with  something  like  paternal  interest. 
Lord  Randolph  Churchill  and  he  were  inseparable.  In  these 
various  episodes  and  connections  he  delighted  to  play  the 
part  of  the  friendly  broker."2  In  this  way,  far  more  effect- 
ively than  by  formal  speech  or  resolution,  though  here  too 

1  The  present  Strangers'  Dining-room. 
» Sir  Henry  Lucy,  Sixty  Years  in  the  Wilderness,  vol.  ii. 

250 


i88s]  IN  OPPOSITION  251 

he  was  untiring  in  the  fight,  he  was  able  to  use  what  is  called 
"the  personal  factor  in  politics."  And  in  his  case  the  per- 
sonal factor  was  no  light  weight.  His  extreme  opinions, 
in  which  he  had  never  wavered  since  the  days  when,  as  a 
young  man,  he  had  scornfully  declined  the  succession  to  his 
uncle's  peerage,  secured  him  the  confidence  both  of  the  Irish 
and  of  the  left  wing  of  the  Liberals,  while,  by  birth,  education, 
and  habit  of  life,  he  was  the  welcome  intimate  of  men  who 
sat  on  the  other  side  of  the  House.  Eton,  Trinity,  and  the 
diplomatic  service  were  an  unusual  training  for  an  ultra- 
Radical  and  gave  an  attractive  flavour  of  sacrilege  to  his 
views.  No  one  appreciated  this  circumstance  more  than 
he  did  himself,  and  certainly  no  one  could  have  put  it  out  to 
better  interest. 

On  June  8,  1885,  a  coalition  of  Tories  and  Irish  defeated 
the  Government  by  a  majority  of  twelve.  The  occasion 
was  an  amendment  moved  by  Sir  Michael  Hicks  Beach 
during  the  second  reading  of  the  Budget  Bill,  condemning 
the  increase  of  beer  and  spirit  duties  proposed  by  the  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer.  The  combination  between  the 
Opposition  and  the  Irish  was  due  to  information  having  been 
given  by  one  of  the  Opposition  leaders  to  the  Irish  party  to 
the  effect  that  the  Tories,  if  returned  to  power,  would  not 
renew  the  Coercion  Act,  which  would  automatically  expire 
in  the  following  August.  *  Mr.  Gladstone  resigned  the  next 
day,  and,  after  some  delay,  Lord  Salisbury  accepted  office 
and  formed  his  first  administration.  The  new  Viceroy,  Lord 
Carnarvon,  following  the  precedents  of  Lord  Mulgrave  in 
1837  and  Lord  Clarendon  in  1850,  himself  made  the  declara- 
tion of  the  Irish  policy  of  the  new  Government.  That  policy 
was  a  complete  renunciation  of  coercion.  Ireland  was  to 
be  governed  by  the  ordinary  law  of  the  land.  "My  Lords, 
I  do  not  believe  that  with  honesty  and  single-mindedness  of 
purpose  on  one  hand,  and  with  the  willingness  of  the  Irish 
people  on  the  other,  it  is  hopeless  to  look  for  some  satisfac- 

*  Morley,  Life  of  Gladstone,  vol.  iii. 


252  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

tory  solution  of  this  terrible  question.  My  Lords,  these  I 
believe  to  be  the  views  and  opinions  of  my  colleagues." 
The  "honesty  and  single-mindedness "  of  this  piece  of  tactics 
were  severely  criticised  by  Mr.  Chamberlain.  "A  strategic 
movement  of  that  kind  executed  in  opposition  to  the  noto- 
rious convictions  of  the  men  who  effected  it,  carried  out  for 
party  purposes  and  party  purposes  alone,  is  the  most  flagrant 
instance  of  political  dishonesty  this  country  has  ever  known." 
The  Irish  party  were  much  impressed  by  the  advances 
of  the  Conservatives,  and  when  Lord  Carnarvon  arranged  to 
meet  Parnell  in  conversation  on  Irish  affairs,  in  the  course 
of  which  they  discussed  whether  "some  plan  of  constituting 
a  Parliament  in  Dublin,  short  of  the  repeal  of  the  Union, 
might  not  be  devised  and  prove  acceptable  to  Ireland,"1 
Parnell  may  be  excused  for  having  thought  that  salvation 
was  to  come  from  the  Tories.  Mr.  Gladstone  had  not  yet 
pronounced  himself.  The  Liberal  Government  had  impris- 
oned the  Irish  leader ;  its  record  in  Ireland,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  Arrears  Bill,  was  summed  up  in  the  word  coercion. 
Liberal  'politicians  were  naturally  upset  at  the  new  turn  of 
events.  Mr.  Healy  had  written  on  May  25  to  Mr.  Labou- 
chere  saying  that  "apart  from  coercion,  it  was  the  policy 
of  the  Irish  party  to  equalise  all  Liberals  and  Tories  as  much 
as  possible  pour  nous  fair  e  valoir,  so  that  the  matter  will  have 
to  be  looked  at  by  us  apart  from  the  renewal  of  coercion, 
though  of  course,  I  imagine,  if  we  thought  we  could  trust 
the  Liberals  to  avoid  obnoxious  legislation  and  to  stick  to 
reform,  we  should  support  them  strongly.  But  how  can 
we  have  any  guarantee  of  the  kind?"  Mr.  Hea'iy  continues 
further  on  in  the  letter:  "I  think  a  little  time  in  the  cool  of 
Opposition  would  do  your  party  a  world  of  good.  ...  If 
we  supported  your  party  next  time,  the  Lords  would  throw 
out  or  render  worthless  any  Bill  the  Commons  passed,  and 
time  has  proved  that  the  Whigs  won't  face  the  Lords.  If 
that  institution  were  abolished  we  should  be  great  fools  not 

1  Barry  O'Brien,  Life  of  Parndl. 


i88s]  IN  OPPOSITION  253 

to  be  friendlier  with  the  Liberals,  but  they  are  almost  power- 
less to  help  us,  even  if  they  were  sincere,  so  long  as  the  Lords 
are  all-powerful."  In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Labouchere,  dated 
July  1 8,  Mr.  Chamberlain  made  the  following  significant 
statement  as  to  his  feeling  in  the  matter : 

The  present  attitude  of  the  Irish  leaders  is  not  at  all  encourag- 
ing to  Radicals.  They  take  no  account  whatever  of  our  diffi- 
culties or  of  the  extent  to  which  we  have,  in  the  past,  supported 
Irish  claims,  and  now  that  a  Tory  Government  is  in  office  they 
are  ready  to  accept  from  them  with  joy  and  gratitude  the  merest 
crumbs  of  consolation,  while  they  reject  with  scorn  and  contumely 
the  offers  of  further  legislation  which  we  have  made.  I  think, 
under  these  circumstances,  we  must  stand  aside  for  the  present. 
The  Irish  Members  "must  stew  in  their  juice"  with  the  Tories 
until  they  find  out  their  mistake.  Whether  the  support  of  the 
Radicals  will  still  be  forthcoming  is  a  question.  My  information 
from  the  country  satisfies  me  that  further  concessions  to  Irish 
opinion  are  not  at  all  popular  even  with  our  Radical  constituents, 
and,  under  all  the  circumstances,  I  am  not  unwilling  to  keep 
silence  for  a  time  and  await  the  course  of  events. 

The  Parnellites,  as  I  understand,  cannot  count  upon  two 
things : 

First,  on  holding  the  balance  after  the  next  General  Election. 
I  am  convinced  that  they  are  mistaken,  and  we  shall  have  a 
majority  over  them  and  the  Tories  combined. 

Secondly,  they  believe  in  the  readiness  of  the  Tories,  under  the 
stress  of  party  exigency,  to  make  concessions  to  them  in  the  shape 
of  Home  Rule  and  otherwise,  which  even  the  Radicals  are  not 
prepared  to  agree  to.  In  this,  also,  I  am  convinced  they  are 
mistaken.  To  whatever  lengths  Randolph  Churchill  may  be 
willing  to  go,  his  party  will  not  follow  him  so  far,  and,  sooner 
or  later,  the  Parnellites  will  find  that  they  have  been  sold. 
I  believe  the  experience  will  be  a  healthy  one  for  them  and 
for  us. 

The  situation  appealed  strongly  to  Mr.  Labouchere, 
and  he  took  up  the  part  of  the  "friendly  broker"  with  zest. 


254  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

On  July  22,  he  saw  Mr.  Healy  and  wrote  the  following 
account  of  his  interview  to  Mr.  Chamberlain : 

Healy  favoured  me  to  his  views  during  three  hours  to-day. 
I  told  him  that  we  were  sure  to  win  without  the  Irish,  but  that 
if  he  and  his  friends  wished  for  any  sort  of  Home  Rule,  he  must 
understand  that  his  only  chance  was  to  ally  himself  with  the 
Radicals  and  to  support  you.  I  said  that  I  had  tried  to  impress 
this  upon  Parnell,  but  that  he  talked  rubbish  about  Grattan's 
Parliament,  and  seemed  to  me  to  be  thoroughly  impractical. 
Healy  said  that  Parnell  in  his  heart  cared  little  for  the  Irish,  par- 
ticularly since  a  mob  ill- treated  him  in  1880.  He  regretted  to 
be  obliged  to  admit  that  personal  feeling  actuated  his  leader's 
policy  at  times,  but  Parnell  felt  his  dignity  off  ended  by  his  arrest 
and  his  present  feeling  was  revenge  on  Gladstone  and  Forster. 

I  suggested  a  rebellion.  But  he  said  that  this  was  impossible 
because  the  present  policy  of  all  Irishmen  was  hanging  together, 
for  they  attributed  all  their  troubles  to  divided  councils.  He  said 
that  Parnell  is  very  astute.  He  generally  finds  out  which  way 
the  feeling  is  amongst  his  followers  before  he  suggests  anything, 
but,  in  one  or  two  cases,  he  has  put  his  foot  down,  when  he 
obtained  his  way. 

I  asked  him  about  Davitt.  He  laughed  at  the  idea  of  his 
being  of  any  use  to  the  Liberals.  He  is  a  very  difficult  man,  he 
said,  and  a  trouble  to  Parnell,  who  would  like  him  to  go  against 
us  openly,  for  this  would  smash  him;  he  cares  neither  for  Tories 
nor  Radicals.  If  Parnell  joined  the  latter  he  would  coquette 
with  the  former  and  vice  versa. 

As  regards  the  present  situation  he  said  that  there  never  was 
anything  which  could  be  called  a  treaty  with  the  Conservatives, 
but  that  there  was  an  understanding  that,  if  they  helped  the 
Tories  to  turn  out  the  late  Government,  and  generally  supported 
them  during  the  remainder  of  the  Session,  there  was  to  be  no 
coercion.  "Churchill  talks  to  us  vaguely  about  Home  Rule, 
but  we  do  not  pay  much  attention  to  this.  We  are  now  paying 
our  debt  that  we  have  incurred."  According  to  present  arrange- 
ments, the  Party  is  to  put  out  a  manifesto  calling  upon  all  Irish 
in  England  to  vote  solid  for  the  Conservative  candidates.  This 
policy  was  adopted,  he  continued,  in  order  to  hold  the  balance. 


1 88s]  IN  OPPOSITION  255 

I  went  into  figures  to  show  him  that  we  should  win  v/ithout  the 
Irish,  and  said  that  the  balance  policy  would  only  end  in  their 
tying  themselves  to  a  corpse. 

He  admitted  that  this  was  possible,  and  said  that  personally 
his  sympathies  were  with  the  Radicals,  but  that  it  was  impossible 
to  trust  the  Liberal  party,  and  to  hope  that  the  Liberal  party 
could  do  anything  even  if  they  wished  to,  owing  to  the  House  of 
Lords.  "No  alliance,"  I  said,  "is  worth  anything  which  is  not 
based  upon  mutual  interest.  We  shall  win  at  the  election,  but 
we  shall  have  to  count  with  the  Whigs.  The  English  electors 
will  be  indignant  at  your  conduct,  and  we  shall  naturally  take 
our  revenge  on  you  for  your  supporting  the  Tories.  Now,  if  you 
would  join  us,  we  should  be  strong  enough  to  hold  our  own  against 
Whigs  and  Tories.  We  want  your  votes  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons ;  you  will  find  that  you  will  do  nothing  without  ours.  What 
do  you  say  to  Chamberlain's  scheme  of  Home  Rule  in  the  Fort- 
nightly? He  said:  "...  there  are  .  .  .  some  things  that  I 
object  to  in  it,  but  Chamberlain  could  not  carry  it.  Even  if  he 
got  it  through  the  House  of  Commons,  the  Lords  would  throw 
it  out."1 

Well,  we  went  on  discussing.  At  last  he  said:  "Can  we  have 
any  assurance  that  Chamberlain's  scheme  would  be  one  on  which 
a  Radical  or  Liberal  Ministry  would  stand  or  fall?  Will  Glad- 
stone declare  for  it?"  "What  would  you  do  if  you  could  be 
certain  of  a  big  scheme  forming  part  of  the  Liberal  platform?" 
I  asked.  "Our  party  really  is  guided  by  about  six  men.  What 
we  decide,"  he  said,  "the  others  accept.  I  would  propose  that 
we  do  not  compromise  ourselves  with  the  Tories,  that  we  should 
issue  no  manifesto,  leaving  Irish  electors  to  vote  as  they  like. 
When  the  plan  is  put  forth  in  the  next  Parliament,  we  should 
have  to  say  that  it  does  not  go  far  enough,  etc.,  but  it  might 
merely  be  a  dummy  opposition.  Whether  I  could  carry  this  I 
don't  know,  but  I  think  that  I  could."  .  .  .  Finally  he  said  that 
he  would  be  back  at  the  commencement  of  August,  and  that,  if 
any  arrangement  could  be  made,  he  would  do  his  best  to  further  it. 

There  are  two  points  in  your  scheme  that  he  wants  modified, 
and  these  I  will  explain  to  you  when  I  see  you  at  the  House,  and 

1  Mr.  Healy  wrote  an  attack  on  Mr.  Chamberlain's  article,  as  soon  as  it 
appeared,  in  United  Ireland,  under  the  title  of  "Queen's  Bench  Home  Rule." 


256  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

you  have  a  moment's  spare  time.  He  told  me  to  tell  you  that 
those  who  wished  that  you  should  be  ill  received  in  Ireland  would 
not  have  their  way,  and  that  you  may  count  on  a  perfectly 
friendly  reception. 

This  letter  is  long,  but  I  thought  that  you  would  like  to  know 
Healy's  ideas,  as  he  is  by  far  the  most  honest  and  ablest  of  the 
Irishmen.  ...  It  is  all  very  well  expecting  to  win  the  elections, 
but  the  Irish  vote  is  an  important  factor,  and  if  only  we  could 
square  the  eighty  Irish  in  the  House,  and  turn  them  into  your 
supporters,  Whigs  and  Tories  would  be  dished.  Certainly  there 
is  no  love  lost  between  the  Allies.  W.  O'Brien,  Healy  told  me, 
declines  to  speak  to  any  of  them,  regarding  them  as  intriguers 
with  whom  they  are  allied  because  of  the  Coercion  Acts. 

Mr.  Healy  wrote  again  to  Mr.  Labouchere  on  August 
2,  and  his  letter  concluded  with  the  following  decisive 
words:  "Of  course,  however,  I  should  be  bound  by  the 
majority,  and  would  steadfastly  carry  out  Parnell's  policy, 
whatever  it  is  declared  by  the  Party  to  be." 

On  August  II,  Parliament  was  prorogued  and  politi- 
cians soon  began  the  campaign  in  the  constituencies  with  a 
view  to  the  General  Election,  which  was  to  take  place  in  No- 
vember. Lord  Salisbury  had  made  the  first  bid  for  the  Irish 
vote  in  a  speech  at  the  Mansion  House  on  July  29,  in  which 
he  defended  Carnarvon's  policy  as  the  logical  outcome  of  the 
Franchise  Act  of  1884.  On  August  24,  Parnell  made  a  very 
important  speech  at  Dublin,  in  which  he  said  that  the  Irish 
platform  would  consist  of  one  plank  only — legislative  inde- 
pendence. The  English  press  was  roused  to  vehement 
denunciation.  The  Times  said  that  an  Irish  Parliament 
was ' '  impossible. ' '  The  Standard  besought  Whigs  and  Tories 
"to  present  a  firm  uncompromising  front  to  the  rebel  chief." 
The  Daily  Telegraph  hoped  that  the  House  of  Commons 
would  not  be  seduced  or  terrified  into  surrender.  The 
Manchester  Guardian  declared  that  Englishmen  would 
"condemn  or  punish  any  party  or  any  public  man  who 
attempted  to  walk  in  the  path  traced  by  Mr.  Parnell." 


i88s]  IN  OPPOSITION  257 

The  Leeds  Mercury  did  not  think  the  question  of  an  Irish 
Parliament  worth  discussing ;  while  the  Daily  News  felt  that 
Great  Britain  could  only  be  saved  from  the  tyranny  of  Mr. 
Parnell  by  a  "strong  administration  composed  of  advanced 
Liberals."1  The  right  wing  of  the  Liberals,  represented 
by  Lord  Hartington,  and  the  left  by  Mr.  Chamberlain,  both 
protested.  Hartington,  speaking  on  August  2,  referred 
to  ParnelTs  manifesto  as  "so  fatal  and  mischievous  a 
proposal."  Mr.  Chamberlain,  speaking  at  Warrington  in 
the  early  days  of  September,  said  very  definitely:  " Speaking 
for  myself,  I  say  that  if  these  and  these  alone  are  the  terms 
on  which  Mr.  ParnelTs  support  is  to  be  obtained,  I  will  not 
enter  into  competition  for  it."  The  veteran  leader,  for  the 
moment,  was  silent,  having  retired  for  repose  and  medita- 
tion to  Norway.  But  though  he  said  nothing  himself,  he 
stimulated  others  to  speak.  Mr.  Barry  O'Brien  was  ap- 
proached in  August  by  a  well-known  English  publicist,  who 
begged  him  to  write  some  articles  on  the  Irish  question  of  a 
"historical  and  dispassionate  nature."  The  publicist  made 
this  request  "at  the  suggestion  of  a  great  man — in  fact  a 
very  great  man."  The  very  great  man  was  Mr.  Gladstone. 
The  first  article  was  published  in  November  under  the  title 
of  "Irish  Wrongs  and  English  Remedies."  On  September 
1 8  Mr.  Gladstone  issued  the  famous  Hawarden  Manifesto 
admitting  the  necessity  for  Home  Rule. 

Mr.  Labouchere  was  busy  all  the  autumn  trying  to  get 
at  the  various  shades  of  opinion  prevalent  among  the  Irish 
members.  Michael  Davitt  was  often  a  thorn  in  ParnelTs 
side,  and  the  following  letter  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Labouchere 
on  October  9  is  very  interesting  as  indicating  clearly  the 
way  in  which  the  two  patriots  often  came  into  collision : 

There  is  a  general  impression  among  the  rank  and  file  of  Irish 
Nationalists  that  the  G.  0.  M.  will  come  nearest  to  ParnelTs 
demand.  There  is  no  English  statesman  more  admired  by  the 

«  Barry  O'Brien,  Life  of  Parnctt. 
17 


258  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

mass  of  the  people,  notwithstanding  what  United  Ireland  and 
platform  speakers  may  say  to  the  contrary.  But  the  priests  and 
bishops  would  rather  have  the  Tory  party  attempt  the  solution 
of  the  Home  Rule  problem,  owing  to  the  fact  of  the  Conservatives 
being  in  favour  of  Denominational  Education.  Men  like  Healy, 
strange  to  say,  are  also  pro-Tory  in  this  respect,  as  they  fear  that 
if  Chamberlain  and  his  party  become  dominant,  the  Radical  or 
democratic  element  in  the  Irish  Nationalist  movement  will  be 
able  to  settle  the  Land  question  on  more  advanced  lines  than 
those  of  the  Parliamentary  party.  In  fact  we  have  Tory  Nation- 
alists and  democratic  Nationalists  in  our  ranks,  and  the  latter 
would  like  to  see  men  like  Chamberlain,  Morley,  and  yourself  in 
a  position  to  arrange  the  Anglo-Irish  difficulty.  Parnell's  atti- 
tude on  Protection  is  absurd.  If  we  had  a  National  Assembly  in 
Dublin  to-morrow,  he  could  not  carry  a  measure  in  favour  of 
Protection.  Three-fourths  of  our  people  live  by  agriculture, 
and  these  want  to  export  their  surplus  produce,  and  would, 
beyond  doubt,  be  in  favour  of  Free  Trade.  Since  Parnell's 
Arklow  speech  I  have  more  than  once  attacked  Protection,  and, 
in  his  recent  Wicklow  pronouncement,  he  considerably  modified 
his  views  on  the  question.  How  singular  that  the  volunteers 
in  Grattan's  time  demanded  Free  Trade  from  England,  and  that 
England  squelched  our  manufactures  by — Protection ! 

I  wish  to  Heaven  Chamberlain  had  not  made  that  Warring- 
ton  "30  to  4"  speech  of  his.  He  has  played  into  the  hands  of 
the  Tory  Nationalists. 

Have  you  read  my  suggestions  about  a  possible  modus  vivendi 
between  England  and  Ireland  in  the  concluding  chapter  of  my 
book?  Parnell  took  his  One  Chamber  idea  from  it.  There  is 
no  room  for  a  Custom  House  in  my  simple  plan,  and  the  Irish 
people  would  jump  at  such  a  scheme  of  self-government,  while 
every  soldier  now  in  Ireland  might  be  removed  without  any 
danger  to  the  integrity  of  the  Empire,  if  such  a  plan  of  settlement 
were  adopted.  .  .  . 

No  more  vivid  light  can  be  thrown  on  Mr.  Labouchere's 
political  activities  at  this  period  than  is  derived  from  his 
letters.  He  was  in  communication  with  all  parties.  The 


i88s]  IN  OPPOSITION  259 

following  selection  from  his  correspondence  illustrates  the 
delicacy  and  importance  of  the  negotiations  with  which  he 
was  concerned.  The  most  interesting  of  these  letters  are 
undoubtedly  those  exchanged  between  himself  and  Mr. 
Chamberlain.  In  them  we  see  clearly  enough  what  was  the 
main  interest  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  life  at  this  time.  I  have 
already  pointed  out  how  completely  he  subordinated  all  other 
political  questions  to  his  wide-reaching  plans  for  the  Radi- 
calisation  first  of  the  Liberal  party  and  secondly  of  the 
country.  Irish  or  Egyptian  or  South  African  politics  were 
but  pawns  in  his  game.  In  this  correspondence  we  see  how 
that  dominant  interest  came  to  be  identified  in  his  mind 
with  Mr.  Chamberlain  himself.  His  frank  admiration  of 
and  political  devotion  to  Mr.  Chamberlain  may  be  read 
between  the  lines  of  all  his  letters.  A  note  that  may  almost 
be  called  pathetic  creeps  into  the  later  letters,  when  he  has 
realised  at  last  that  his  glorious  schemes  are  going  to  be 
frustrated  by  the  man  on  whom  he  had  so  completely  relied 
for  their  success.  The  dramatic  quality  of  some  of  the 
letters  is  intense.  The  angel  wrestles  with  Jacob  and  knows 
it  is  in  vain. 

Mr.  T.  M.  Healy  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

DUBLIN,  Oct.  15,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — A  number  of  us  had  a  long  chat 
with  Parnell  on  Saturday,  and  he  seems  quite  confident  that 
whether  Liberals  or  Tories  get  in,  Home  Rule  will  be  granted. 
I  quite  agree  that,  if  the  Tories  get  in  with  our  votes  and  are 
kept  in  by  our  help,  they  will  come  to  terms,  but  I  am  not  at  all 
so  sure  that  if  the  Liberals  get  in  they  would  have  the  courage 
(even  if  they  had  the  will — did  we  oppose  them)  to  face  the 
question. 

It  is  no  use  discussing  our  attitude  from  any  other  than  the 
expediency  standpoint.  We  have  to  make  the  best  fight  we 
can  for  a  small  country,  and  clearly,  if  we  could  put  the  Tories 
in  and  hold  them  dependent  on  us,  that  is  our  game.  With  the 
House  of  Lords  behind  them  and  our  help,  they  could  play  ducks 


26o  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

and  drakes  with  the  Union,  were  they  so  minded.  I  confess, 
however,  I  am  so  ignorant  of  the  English  campaign  that  I  don't 
find  myself  able  to  speculate  on  the  outcome  of  the  ballot  box, 
but  I  can  hardly  believe  that  there  is  much  prospect  of  the 
Liberals  being  beaten.  What  you  have  not  touched  upon  in 
any  letter  to  me  is  the  point  which  always  ghosts  me — if  the 
Liberals  bring  in  a  bold  scheme  how  will  they  overcome  the  House 
of  Lords?  You  must  remember  that  the  Tories  would  then  raise 
the  anti-Irish  cry  and  the  Lords  would  be  in  no  unpopular  posi- 
tion in  rejecting  a  scheme  which  they  would  allege  meant  dis- 
memberment. Of  course,  if  the  Liberals  then  promised  to 
dissolve,  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  with  our  support  they  would 
not  win,  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  Liberals  are  not  united 
in  our  favour,  and  though  Mr.  Gladstone  could  keep  them  to- 
gether, yet  men  like  Hartington  and  Harcourt  would  secretly 
sympathise  with  the  Tories,  and  would  certainly  not  show  en- 
thusiasm in  rallying  the  constituencies  on  an  Irish  cry.  I  don't 
believe  a  bit  in  principle  being  of  any  account  with  English  parties. 
Look  at  the  way  Chamberlain  spoke  of  Ireland  when  he  was 
baulked  of  coming  over.  Read — to  take  a  minor  creature — 
Osborne  Morgan's  speeches.  Mr.  Gladstone  is  the  only  one  who 
has  shown  no  bitterness  and  has  kept  the  controversy  in  what 
the  Germans  call  the  heitern  regionen  wo  die  reinenformen  wohnen. 
Of  course  I  admit  that  we  have  given  great  cause  for  bitterness, 
but  I  maintain  that  we  could  not  have  fought  successfully  in  any 
other  style,  whereas  the  English,  with  their  bayonets  to  rely  on, 
need  not  grudge  us  Billingsgate — though  certainly  we  have  not 
been  allowed  the  exclusive  use  of  this  feeble  weapon. 

I  was  glad  to  read  Childers'  speech,  which  produced  an  ex- 
cellent impression  here  by  its  moderation  and  practicalness. 
With  regard  to  a  plan,  Parnell  asked  Sexton  and  myself  to  try 
and  draw  up  something,  but  we  were  so  busy — that  without  a 
good  library,  which  we  have  not  here,  easily  available,  the  task 
is  appalling.  Parnell's  idea  is  to  abolish  the  Lord  Lieutenancy, 
strike  a  financial  balance  between  the  two  countries,  giving,  as 
our  Imperial  quota,  an  average  on  ten  years'  returns  of  Irish 
contributions  with  the  cost  of  ruling  Ireland  deducted.  This 
would  get  rid  of  the  Irish  Parliament  voting  or  refusing  supplies, 
as  the  sum  would  be  a  fixed  one,  and  if  we  did  not  pay  it  we  could 


18851  IN  OPPOSITION  261 

very  easily  be  compelled.  He  would  be  for  retaining  the  Irish 
members  at  Westminster,  and  I  suppose  there  would  not  be 
much  trouble  in  the  arrangement  being  made  in  that  case,  that 
they  should  be  summoned  by  the  Speaker  to  debate  affairs  which 
he  declared  Imperial  or  Irish,  and  in  the  English  Legislature 
taking  them  at  a  particular  period  of  the  Session  for  the  sake  of 
convenience.  I  think  we  should  have  full  power  over  everything 
here  except  the  Army  and  the  Navy,  as  I  cannot  see  what  other 
interest  England  has  here.  If  we  pay  her  a  due  taxation,  what 
possible  care  of  hers  is  it  how  else  we  order  our  affairs?  As  for 
the  minority,  the  Protestants  would  soon  realise  they  were  safe 
with  the  Catholics  (and  they  would  be  the  pets  of  our  people). 
Let  there  be,  by  all  means,  every  guarantee  given  for  their  pro- 
tection however.  If  the  Tories  come  in  they  would  give  us 
Protection,  I  am  sure,  but  would  stipulate  for  terms  for  the 
landlords. — Faithfully  yours, 

T.  M.  HEALY. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Oct.  18,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Just  before  the  end  of  the  Session 
Herbert  Gladstone  came  to  me,  and  asked  me  to  endeavour  to 
arrange  some  sort  of  modus  vivendi  with  the  Irish.  His  father, 
he  said,  required  time,  if  any  joint  action  was  to  be  taken  in  the 
next  Parliament,  to  gain  over  the  Whigs,  and  he  was  determined 
not  to  lead  unless  he  had  a  united  party  behind  him.  I  told 
Herbert  Gladstone  that  I  was  convinced  that  Parnell,  for  various 
reasons,  did  not  want  an  arrangement  and  that  he  would  prefer 
to  remain  an  irreconcilable,  but  that  it  might  be  possible  to 
influence  him  through  Healy  and  others.  So  I  sent  to  Healy, 
who  came  over  to  England.  Healy  explained  that  personally 
he  was  strongly  in  favour  of  an  arrangement,  but  that  any  one 
going  against  Parnell  would  be  nowhere  just  now,  because  the 
Irish  had  got  it  into  their  heads  that  union  was  strength.  But 
he  promised  to  do  all  that  he  could.  Then  I  went  abroad.  On 
my  return  Herbert  wrote  to  ask  what  had  been  done.  Healy 
replied  that  a  Committee  consisting  of  Sexton,  T.  P.  O'Connor, 
etc.,  had  been  appointed  to  look  into  federations  generally,  and 


262  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

to  report  thereon,  but  that  Parnell  hardly  spoke  to  his  followers 
upon  political  matters,  beyond  such  as  concerned  the  Irish  elec- 
tions, and  he  went  into  various  details  as  to  what  he  thought 
would  prove  satisfactory.  This  letter  I  sent  to  Hawarden,  and 
got  back  a  letter  stating  the  views  of  the  G.  0.  M.,  the  phrase 
being  always  "I"  or  "I  think  my  father"  as  had  been  agreed. 
The  G.  O.  M.  says  that  he  is  disposed  to  grant  the  fullest  Home 
Rule  etc.,  but  that  he  does  not  think  it  is  desirable  to  formulate 
a  scheme  before  the  elections,  and  he  again  presses  for  the  Irish 
minimum.  I  have  sent  this  to  Healy.  Evidently  the  game  of 
the  G.  O.  M.  is  to  endeavour  to  unite  the  Party  on  Irish  Legisla- 
tion, and  to  make  that  his  cheval  de  bataille\  but  he  says  that  he 
will  do  nothing  unless  he  can  get  some  assurance  that  the  Irish 
will  in  the  main  back  him  up.  I  don't  think  that  they  will,  but, 
with  such  strange  creatures,  there  is  no  knowing. 

I  spent  yesterday  morning  with  our  friend  Randolph.  He 
says  that  the  Conservatives  count  upon  280  returns  in  their 
favour,  and  that  if  they  get  anything  like  this  they  will  not  resign, 
and  they  hope  to  remain  in  office  for  two  or  three  years,  owing 
to  the  coalition  between  the  Whigs,  the  Irish,  and  the  Radicals. 
He  says  that  Hartington,  who  up  to  now  has  been  very  guarded 
in  his  observations,  now  in  private  denounces  you,  and  vows 
that  he  will  not  stand  it.  In  his  (Randolph's)  opinion,  he  will 
withdraw  from  politics.  If  he  does  not,  Randolph  anticipates 
that  the  outcome  will  be  an  Aberdeen  Ministry.  Randolph 
looks  very  ill,  though  he  says  that  he  is  pretty  well.  He  is  taking 
digitalis  for  his  heart,  and  says  that  he  is  certain  that  the  late 
hours  in  the  House  of  Commons  will  knock  him  up.  ... 

What  is  the  real  feeling  in  the  country  I  do  not  know,  but  I 
have  in  the  last  fortnight  attended  some  of  the  meetings  of  the 
nonentities  who  are  contesting  the  Metropolitan  Constituencies, 
and  here  you  are  first  and  the  rest  nowhere.  The  Whigs  seem 
to  have  disappeared  entirely.  My  impression  is  that  they  have 
all  gone  over  to  the  Conservatives,  and  that  the  Whig  leaders 
are — if  the  country  is  to  be  judged  by  the  metropolis — entirely 
without  followers.  When  you  allude  to  Goschen  there  are 
groans,  when  you  allude  to  Hartington  there  is  silence;  and  you 
have  to  get  up  a  cheer  for  the  G.  O.  M.  by  dwelling  upon  his 
noble  heart  and  that  sort  of  trash.  I  think,  however,  that 


i88s]  IN  OPPOSITION  263 

the   Conservatives  will  gain  more  seats  in  London  than   we 
anticipate. 

By  the  way,  I  do  not  think  that  the  alliance  of  Randolph 
with  the  Irish  is  going  on  very  smoothly.  He  complained  to  me 
that  it  was  impossible  to  trust  Parnell,  and  that  the  Maamtrasna 
business  had  been  sprung  as  a  surprise.  Before  the  Conservatives 
came  in,  Parnell  told  me  that  he  would  support  the  Conservatives 
on  no  Coercion  Bill,  a  scheme  for  buying  out  the  landlords,  and 
money  expended  in  further  works.  No  sooner  were  they  in  than 
he  told  me  that  the  feeling  in  Ireland  was  so  strong  for  Home 
Rule  that  it  must  be  pushed  forward.  My  own  experience  of 
Parnell  is  that  he  never  makes  a  bargain  without  intending  to 
get  out  of  it,  and  that  he  has  either  a  natural  love  of  treachery, 
or  considers  that  promises  are  not  binding  when  made  ta  a 
Saxon.  .  .  . 

Would  it  not  be  possible  to  have  one  grand  Bill  for  local 
government  in  both  islands,  and  settling  the  difference  between 
local  and  Imperial  Sessions.  It  might  be  made  so  as  to  oblige 
English  Conservatives  to  oppose  it  in  their  own  interests,  and 
sufficiently  strong  to  make  it  difficult  for  the  Irish  to  reject  it 
on  the  second  reading? — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

HIGHBURY,  BIRMINGHAM,  Oct.  20,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — Thanks  for  your  most  interesting 
letter,  which  confirms  my  suspicions  as  to  the  intentions  of  our 
great  chief.  I  was  led  to  them  in  the  first  instance  by  the  speeches 
of  H.  G.  at  Leeds — he  is  generally  inspired,  I  think.  Mr.  G. 
himself  was  cautious  with  me  at  Hawarden,  though  he  did  not 
conceal  that  his  present  interest  was  in  the  Irish  question,  and 
he  seemed  to  think  that  a  policy  for  dealing  with  it  might  be 
found  which  would  unite  us  all  and  which  would  necessarily 
throw  into  the  background  those  minor  points  of  difference  about 
the  schools  and  small  holdings  which  threaten  to  drive  the  Whigs 
into  the  arms  of  the  Tories  or  into  retirement.  But  I  agree  with 
you  that  the  modus  vivendi  cannot  be  found.  First,  because  all 
Liberals  are  getting  weary  of  making  concessions  to  Parnell, 


264  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

and  will  not  stand  much  more  of  it,  and  secondly,  because  Parnell 
cannot  be  depended  on  to  keep  any  bargain.  I  believe,  therefore, 
that  Mr.  G.'s  plans  will  come  to  naught. 

I  hope  Randolph  Churchill  is  all  out  in  his  calculations.  I 
do  not  give  the  Tories  more  than  200.  Of  course  the  future 
depends  on  the  result  of  the  Elections,  but  my  impression  is  that 
Hartington  will  yield,  grumbling  as  usual,  but  still  yielding. 

The  effect  of  the  campaign  I  have  just  completed  has  surprised 
me.  I  really  had  no  idea  at  first  of  giving  more  than  a  "  friendly 
lead"  to  candidates  in  the  new  constituencies.  The  idiotic 
opposition  of  the  Whigs  and  the  abuse  of  the  Tories  has  turned 
my  gentle  hint  into  a  great  national  policy — and  now  it  must  be 
forced  on  at  all  hazards.  The  majority  of  new  County  candidates 
are  pledged  to  it — ditto  Scotch  members,  ditto  London.  In 
Lancashire  it  is  not  so  strong,  as  there  are  signs  of  rebellion  in 
the  constituencies  against  the  half-hearted  orders  of  the  local 
Caucus. 

I  fear  we  cannot  run  English  and  Irish  Local  Government  in 
one  Bill — the  present  conditions  are  so  absolutely  dissimilar — 
but  we  will  consider  this  again,  if  we  have  the  opportunity.  I 
am  glad  to  say  there  is  a  good  chance  that  Goschen  will  be 
defeated  at  Edinburgh.  The  working  men  are  dead  against  him. 

On  the  whole  I  am  satisfied  with  the  outlook.  The  first 
difficulty  is  to  find  fellow-workers :  the  rank  and  file  are  all  right, 
but  there  is  an  awful  lack  of  Generals,  and  even  of  non-commis- 
sioned officers. — Yours  very  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Oct.  20,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  send  you  enclosed  to  look  at.  * 
I  have  forwarded  copy  to  Healy.  Evidently  the  G.O.M.  is 
getting  a  little  anxious  about  the  Election,  and  is  now  trying  to 
persuade  the  Parnellites  that  they  must  try  and  get  pledges 
from  the  Conservatives,  because  he  knows  that  they  cannot. 
As  he  says,  the  Land  question  is  the  difficulty,  because  he  is  not 
prepared  to  admit  that  its  regulation  in  Ireland  is  involved  in 

1  The  enclosure  was  letter  from  Mr.  Herbert  Gladstone  dated  October  18. 


i88s]  IN  OPPOSITION  265 

Local  Government,  and  that  it  in  no  way  affects  the  integrity 
of  the  Empire,  whether  land  in  Kilkenny  belongs  to  this  man  or 
that.  I  have  pointed  out  to  Healy  that  the  difficulty  might  per- 
haps be  turned  by  supporting  your  plan  of  compulsory  purchase 
by  local  authorities  in  both  islands,  and  I  have  explained  to  him 
the  meaning  of  a  fair  price — viz.  such  an  amount  as  would  give 
the  landlord  the  same  net  income  in  consols  or  Government  bonds, 
as  he  gets  now  from  his  land,  or  ought  to  get,  and  I  have  urged 
upon  him  that  if  such  a  Bill  were  passed,  and  if  there  were  Home 
Rule  in  Ireland,  the  Irish  might  surely  make  things  so  uncom- 
fortable to  the  landlords  that  they  would  be  glad  to  clear  out 
for  very  little. 

Would  it  not  be  a  good  plan  to  have  one  grand  Bill,  coupling 
together  local  self-government  here,  and  Home  Rule  in  Ireland? 
We  should  in  that  way  get  the  Irish  votes  for  England,  and  if  the 
portions  of  the  Bill  really  do  give  substantial  Home  Rule  in 
Ireland,  I  greatly  doubt  whether  the  Irish  would  venture  to  vote 
against  the  second  reading.  They  might  develop  their  views 
and  swagger  in  Committee.  If  this  Bill  were  coupled  with  an- 
other on  your  lines  respecting  land,  the  two  questions  could  be 
solved,  or  your  purchase  claims  might  form  part  of  the  Bill.  At 
the  bottom  of  the  difficulty  is  the  G.  O.  M.  He  still  hankers  first 
after  the  Whigs,  and  is  not  sound  on  the  land  question  .  .  . , 
and  is  bent  upon  that  difficult  task  of  making  oil  and  water 
combine.  Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

HIGHBURY,  BIRMINGHAM,  Oct.  23,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — My  last  letter  has  partly  antici- 
pated yours  of  2ist.  I  return  H.  G.'s  communication.  He  has 
apparently  his  father's  capacity  for  mystification,  for  I  cannot 
possibly  make  out  what  he  is  really  driving  at. 

Does  he  imagine  that  the  Tories  can  be  committed  before- 
hand to  support  a  small  Liberal  majority  in  some  scheme  of 
advanced  Local  Govt.? 

He  must  be  an  ingenuus  puer.  For  my  part  I  believe  in  leaving 
the  Irishmen  to  "stew  in  their  own  juice."  My  proposal  is  the 


266  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

maximum  that  English  Radicals  will  stand  and  a  great  deal  more 
than  the  Whigs  will  accept.  It  had  practically  been  agreed  to 
by  Parnell,  and  yet  he  threw  it  over  at  the  last  moment.  It  is 
impossible  to  depend  on  him  and  it  is  much  better  policy  now 
to  play  the  waiting  game.  If  Randolph  is  right  we  shall  be  the 
better  for  not  being  pledged. 

I  am  sure,  however,  that  he  is  wrong,  but  even  then  we  shall 
be  much  stronger  in  negotiation  when  we  have  a  majority  at 
our  backs. 

If  the  G.  O.  M.  were  ill-advised  enough  to  propose  a  separate 
Parliament,  he  will  find  very  little  support  from  any  section  of 
the  party. — Yours  very  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Nov.  12,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — This  is  the  last  communication 
from  Healy,  which  he  wants  sent  to  the  G.  O.  M.  So  I  send  it 
through  the  usual  channel.  After  saying  that  he  will  do  his  best 
for  Lefevre,  he  says: 

"It  is  very  difficult  for  us  to  adopt  a  piecemeal  policy, 
although  it  certainly  is  the  intention  to  issue  instructions 
that  in  regard  to  half  a  dozen  Liberals,  they  shall  be  sup- 
ported at  all  hazards,  but  so  far  as  I  can  gather  the  working 
of  Parnell's  mind  up  to  the  present,  it  is  not  certain  that  he 
will  go  against  the  Liberals  bald-headed,  if  at  all.  T.  P. 
O'Connor  is  strong  for  supporting  the  Tories.  If  we  could 
have  an  understanding  with  the  leaders,  it  would  settle  this 
and  every  other  question.  It  seems  to  me  curious  that  we 
are  now  to  be  asked  to  define  our  demands,  on  a  question 
on  which  English  Statesmen  do  not  need  much  instruction, 
seeing  that  in  1881,  when  the  agrarian  question  was  cer- 
tainly complicated,  nobody  dreamed  of  asking  our  opinion, 
but  on  the  contrary  the  beauty  of  the  measure  was  that  it 
was  supposed  to  be  disapproved  by  the  Nationalists.  I 
cannot,  therefore,  help  feeling  that  this  demand  for  a  plan 
from  us  is  simply  a  desire  for  our  discomfort,  and  the  profit 
of  the  English.  If  there  is  really  earnestness  in  the  Liberal 


i88sl  IN  OPPOSITION  267 

Party  next  Session  (should  they  be  in  a  majority)  to  settle 
the  Irish  question,  I  do  not  think  they  will  find  us  unreason- 
able. God  knows  it  is  time  we  were  at  peace,  but  if  they 
insist  on  forcing  on  us  a  Bill,  which  we  denounce,  and  which 
we  shall  wreck  in  the  working,  the  contest  between  the  two 
countries  will  grow  more  aggravated  than  ever.  Spencer 
and  Forster  were  hit  a  thousand  times  more  than  Trevelyan, 
and  yet  they  never  went  pushing  about,  spitting  gall  as  he 
has  done.  The  G.  O.  M.  is  the  father  of  them  all,  and  I  do 
urge  him  to  develop  a  little  the  lines  of  his  first  speech  which 
I  have  just  read." 

And  then  he  goes  into  a  puff  of  the  G.  O.  M.'s  Article  against 
Darwin,  which,  it  seems,  delights  the  Roman  Catholics. 

Could  you  not  give  them  a  few  smooth  words  in  a  speech, 
particularly  in  regard  to  land.  They  have  taken  it  into  their 
silly  heads  that  you  are  now  their  enemy,  and  as  they  have 
eighty  votes  it  is  just  as  well  to  clear  this  illusion  away. — Yours 
truly, 

H.  LA BOUCHERS. 

Mr.   Labouchere  to   Mr.    Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Nov.  16,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — This  is  the  proposal  to  the  Irish, 
which  I  forward.1  It  is  in  reply  to  Healy's  last  communication. 
You  will  see  that  the  question  of  the  land  etc.,  being  under  the 
control  of  the  Irish  Chamber,  is  shirked. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

HIGHBURY,  BIRMINGHAM,  Nov.  22,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — You  see,  Parnell  has  gone  against 
the  Liberals.  I  felt  certain  he  would.  He  has  been  playing 
with  those  around  him  and  has  intentionally  deceived  some  of 
his  own  friends.  I  really  think  he  will  force  us  all,  Radicals  and 

1  The  proposal  was  contained  in  a  letter  from  Mr.  Herbert  Gladstone  to 
Mr.  Labouchere,  which  Mr.  Labouchere  quoted  in  full  for  Mr.  Chamberlain's 
information.  It  enumerated  six  conditions  as  the  basis  of  a  settlement  of  the 
Irish  Government  question. 


268  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

Liberals,  to  reject  all  arrangements  with  him.  If  we  had  a  good 
Speaker  with  dictatorial  powers  he  could  stop  Irish  obstruction 
and  P.'s  power  in  Ireland  would  be  shaken  as  soon  as  the  people 
saw  he  was  impotent  in  Parliament. 

We  are  having  a  much  harder  fight  than  we  expected.  I 
think  we  shall  win  all  our  seats  here,  but  it  is  a  hard  pull.  The 
Tories  are  very  confident  and  are  regaining  courage  in  the 
counties.  My  hope  is  that  the  labourers  will  lie  courageously — 
promise  to  the  Tories  and  vote  for  us.  ...  — Yours  very  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Nov.  25,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — That  undaunted  sportsman  the 
G.  O.  M.  is  still  hankering  after  the  Irish  and  his  general  scheme 
of  pacification.  I  get  a  letter  from  Rosebery  every  day,  asking 
for  this  and  that  information.  I  have  written  to  say  that  if  the 
Liberals  get  a  majority,  it  may  be  possible  to  negotiate,  but  that 
at  present  it  is  a  mere  waste  of  time  to  try  anything. 

We  have  been  losing  for  a  very  clear  reason.  You  put  for- 
ward a  good  Radical  programme.  This  would  have  taken. 
But  no  sooner  had  you  put  it  forward  than  Hartington  and 
others  denounced  it.  Then  the  G.  O.  M.  proposed  that  any 
question  should  be  shunted  to  the  dim  and  distant  future, 
and  that  all  should  unite  to  bring  him  back  to  power,  with 
a  Coalition  Ministry — in  fact  the  old  game  which  had  already 
resulted  in  shilly  shally.  I  think  the  inhabitants  of  towns 
have  shown  their  wisdom  in  preferring  even  the  Conserva- 
tives to  this.  I  want  to  find  the  people  on  our  side,  who 
are  against  disestablishment.  Some  Peers  and  leaders  are,  but 
the  masses  go  for  it.  They  are  simply  sulky  at  being  told  that 
everything  must  knock  under  to  Peers  and  Whigs.  This  is  how 
I  read  the  elections .  Our  only  hope  now  is  in  the ' '  cow , ' '  and  here 
too  I  am  afraid  that  the  Whigs  will  have  thrown  cold  water  on 
all  enthusiasm.  I  am  not  myself  particularly  sorry  at  what  is 
occurring.  A  year  or  two  of  opposition  will  be  far  better — from 
the  Radical  standpoint — than  a  Cabinet  with  a  Whig  majority 
in  it.  With  all  the  elements  of  disintegration,  we  surely  shall 


i88s]  IN  OPPOSITION  269 

be  able  to  render  Conservative  legislation  impossible,  and  to 
force  on  a  dissolution  very  soon,  when  your  Caucus  must  come 
out  with  a  clear  and  definite  programme.  Milk  may  be  good  for 
babes,  but  Whig  milk  will  not  do  for  electors.  The  Whigs  have 
dished  themselves,  thank  God.  Even  Gladstone's  name  goes 
for  little  at  public  meetings.  Yours  is  the  only  one  which  makes 
any  one  stand  up  and  cheer. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Dec.  i,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  quite  agree  with  you.  But 
would  it  not  be  well  to  make  it  clear  that  the  Election  was  run 
on  the  Whig  and  not  on  the  Tory  Programme?1 

I  should  imagine  that  the  Irish  will  come  round.  The  aim 
of  the  Conservatives  will  be  to  keep  in  a  short  time  with  their  aid, 
then  to  quarrel  with  them,  and  to  seek  to  hold  their  own  against 
the  Irish  and  the  Radicals  by  a  combination  with  the  Whigs. 
This  scheme  Randolph  Churchill  explained  to  me  a  short  time  ago. 
If  G.  O.  M.  still  hankers  after  an  alliance  with  the  Irish,  it 
may  be  possible  to  arrange  one,  which  would  cause  a  split  between 
him  and  his  Whig  friends.  He  was  always  wanting  to  know  as 
soon  as  possible  what  could  be  effected,  because  he  said  that  he 
wanted  time  to  gain  over  some  of  his  late  colleagues. 

I  am  not  the  least  surprised  at  results.  Putting  aside  the 
Irish  vote  and  bad  times,  was  it  likely  that  there  would  be  great 
enthusiasm  for  a  cause,  which  was  explained  to  be  to  relegate 
everything  of  importance  to  the  dim  distant  future,  and  to  unite 
in  order  to  bring  back  to  power  the  old  lot,  with  all  their  doubts 
and  hesitations,  under  a  leader  who  was  always  implying,  without 
meaning  it,  that  he  meant  to  retire? — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

SIGN  MANSIONS,  BRIGHTON,  Dec.  3, 1885. 
MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — This  afternoon  I  got  a  telegram 

•The  election  ran  from  Nov.  23  to  Dec.  19.  The  result  was  that  333 
Liberals  were  returned,  251  Conservatives,  and  86  Parnellites. 


270  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

from  Randolph  to  say  he  was  coming  down,  and  I  have  had  him 
here  all  the  evening. 

He  says  (but  don't  have  it  from  me)  that,  if  a  vote  of  want  of 
confidence  is  not  proposed,  they  will  adjourn  for  three  weeks 
after  the  Speaker  is  chosen.  If  they  have  a  majority  with  the 
Irish,  he  says  that  they  are  inclined  to  throw  their  Speaker  as  a 
sop  to  the  Irish,  and  evidently  he  has  a  scheme  in  his  head  to 
get  Hicks- Beach  elected  Speaker,  and  to  take  his  place  himself. 

He  told  me  that  he  had  given  in  a  memorandum  to  Lord 
Salisbury  about  the  state  of  parties  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
in  which  he  puts  down  Hartington  as  worth  200  votes,  and  you 
for  the  balance.  They  intend  to  give  a  non  possumus  to  all 
proposals  for  Home  Rule,  and  they  expect  to  be  supported  by 
Hartington,  even  if  the  G.  0.  M.  goes  for  Home  Rule.  Salisbury 
is  ready  to  resign  the  Premiership  to  Hartington  if  necessary, 
and  the  new  Party  is  to  be  called  the  "Coalition  Party."  It 
appears  that  the  G.  O.  M.  (but  this  I  have  vowed  not  to  tell) 
has  given  in  to  the  Queen  a  scheme  of  Home  Rule,  with  a  sort  of 
Irish  President  at  the  head,  who  is  to  be  deposed  by  the  Queen 
and  Council,  if  necessary. 

Should  they  not  be  turned  out,  they  will  at  once  start  a  dis- 
cussion on  Procedure. 

Is  not  the  cow  working  wonders  for  us?  Next  time  we  must 
have  an  urban  cow. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

HIGHBURY,  BIRMINGHAM,  Dec.  4,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, —  .  .  .  The  "urban  cow"  is  the 
great  difficulty.  I  put  my  money  on  free  schools,  but,  judg- 
ing by  London,  the  electors  do  not  care  much  about  it. 

Things  are  going  better  for  us.  I  was  forced  to  speak  yester- 
day at  Leicester,  and  you  will  see  I  had  a  dig  at  the  Whigs.  I 
will  drive  the  knife  in  on  the  lyth. 

Surely  Hartington  will  not  be  such  a  fool  as  to  make  a  coali- 
tion. If  he  is  inclined  that  way  I  should  be  happy  to  give  him  a 
lift.  It  would  be  the  making  of  the  Radical  party. 

If  the  Tories  go  against  Peel  they  will  irritate  Hartington  and 
the  Moderates.  I  don't  care  a  straw  either  way. 


i88sl  IN  OPPOSITION  271 

I  should  warmly  support  any  proposals  for  amendment  of 
Procedure  which  gave  more  power  to  the  majority. — Yours 

truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

P.  S. — We  must  keep  the  Tories  in  for  some  time.  If  R. 
Churchill  will  not  play  the  fool,  I  certainly  should  not  be  inclined 
to  prefer  a  weak  Liberal  or  Coalition  Government  to  a  weak 
Tory  one.  His  best  policy  is  to  leave  us  to  deal  with  the  Whigs 
and  not  to  compel  us  to  unite  the  party  against  the  Tories. — 
Yours, 

J.C. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

HIGHBURY,  BIRMINGHAM,  Dec.  7,  1885. 

DEAR  LABOUCHERE, —  .  .  .  The  G.  O.  M.  is  very  anxious  to 
come  in  again.  I  am  not,  and  I  think  we  must  sit  on  his  Irish 
proposals.  It  will  require  a  careful  steering  to  keep  the  Radical 
boat  head  to  the  wind. — Yours  very  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Foljambe  is  out,  for  which  I  am  devoutly  thankful.  There 
goes  another  Moderate  Liberal  and  Hartington's  speech  did  not 
help  him.  I  hope  E.  Cavendish  will  go  too.  He  is  not  safe. 

Mr.  T.  M.  Healy  to  Mr.  Laboucherc 

DUBLIN,  Dec.  7,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  L., — Thanks  for  your  postings.  As  far  as  I  can 
make  out  your  party  will  be  in  a  minority  of  5  or  6  when  all  is 
over  a  couple  of  days  hence.  We  shall  have  86  in  our  party. 
I  have  not  seen  Parnell  for  over  a  fortnight  and  know  nothing 
of  his  mind  except  that  I  think  it  significant  he  should  have  told 
his  interviewer  that  he  expected  Home  Rule  from  the  Liberals. 
This,  of  course  may  have  been  a  hint  to  prick  up  Salisbury,  and 
it  remains  to  be  seen  how  it  will  work.  But  in  my  opinion  we 
have  no  course  but  to  turn  out  the  Tories.  Eighteen  of  their 
men  are  Irish,  who  would  oppose  tooth  and  nail  every  concession 
to  us,  and  as  they  would  vote  against  their  own  party  on  H.  R. 
(supposing  "Barkis  is  willing")  that  would  count  36  against 


272  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

them,  which,  of  course,  would  hardly  be  made  up  to  them  by 
Liberal  votes,  as  your  party,  with  three  or  four  exceptions,  would 
stand  coldly  aside  and  rejoice  to  see  them  and  us,  combined,  put  in 
a  minority.  Looking  at  the  matter  in  the  most  cynical  manner, 
therefore,  I  don't  see  what  P.  can  do  but  put  out  the  Conser- 
vatives. With  us  you  would  have  such  an  immense  majority 
that  you  could  spare  the  desertion  of  a  score  of  rats  amongst  the 
Whigs,  while  many  of  the  Borough  Conservatives  who  owe  their 
seats  to  us  might  abstain  from  a  H.  R.  division. 

As  to  the  means  of  putting  them  out,  I  assume,  if  we  were 
agreed  as  to  terms,  that  it  would  be  easy  to  move  an  amendment 
to  the  Address  which  we  could  support.  Whether  this  should 
have  relation  directly  to  Ireland  is  a  matter  for  the  strategists 
of  your  party  to  consider,  as  while  it  would  suit  our  book 
perfectly  it  might  not  rally  all  your  men  and  might  lead  to  in- 
convenient debate.  It  would,  however,  look  odd  in  us,  after 
denouncing  you  so  bitterly,  to  put  you  in  straightway  on  some 
by-issue,  not  in  relation  to  self-government,  and,  moreover,  as  we 
should  be  strictly  "dark  horses"  as  to  which  side  we  should 
support,  an  Irish  amendment  would  have  the  advantage  of 
extracting  from  ministers  certain  expressions  or  promises  in  order 
to  fetch  us,  which  could  be  made  great  capital  out  of  afterwards 
by  you.  Without  having  thought  deeply  on  the  strategical 
aspect  of  the  situation,  it  occurs  to  me  that  the  best  thing  would 
be  to  have  an  understanding  with  the  Liberals  and  "play"  the 
Government  for  a  few  weeks  with  the  Irish  fly  to  see  would  it 
rise,  without  actually  landing  them.  Both  you  and  we  would 
then  get  time  to  see  their  programme  and  how  their  party 
swallowed  it — so  as  to  corner  them  afterwards. 

It  is  clear  no  scheme  of  Home  Rule  can  be  carried  through  the 
Lords  without  a  dissolution,  and  then,  with  our  help,  you  could 
have  a  majority  of  200  over  the  Tories.  But  we  should  have 
a  good  registration  of  Voters'  Bill  passed  first  and  some  amend- 
ments of  the  Ballot  Act.  I  think  your  people  should  at  once  get 
into  touch  with  Parnell.  He  went  to  England  this  morning  and 
should  be  seen  by  some  one  from  your  side.  I  agree  with  you 
that  Mr.  Gladstone  alone  can  settle  the  Irish  question.  He  is 
the  only  man  with  head  and  heart  for  the  task,  and  the  only  man 
who  can  reduce  to  decency  the  contemptible  cads  who  so  largely 


i88s]  IN  OPPOSITION  273 

composed  the  'ast  Liberal  party.     I  thank  God  that  so  many  of 
the  howlers  and  gloaters  over  our  sufferings  have  met  their  fate 

at  the  polls. — Yours, 

T.  M.  HEALY. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

BRIGHTON,  Dec.  8,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  have  just  got  a  letter  from  Her- 
bert Gladstone,  which  I  have  sent  on  to  Healy.1.  .  . 

I  have  replied  that  it  is  very  questionable  whether  any  sort 
of  arrangement  can  be  come  to  with  Parnell,  but  that,  if  so,  it 
will  be  necessary  for  "Herbert"  to  explain  precisely  "logical 
issues  and  solid  acts" — or,  in  other  words,  to  let  us  have  the 
maximum  of  concession. 

I  doubt  Parnell  agreeing  to  any  scheme  which  "  Herbert "  may 
propose,  their  views  are  so  divergent.  But  suppose  that  he  does 
— would  it  not  be  well  to  use  the  G.  .O.  M.  to  settle  this  question 
and  get  it  out  of  the  way.  If  he  agrees  with  Parnell,  he  will  not 
agree  long  with  his  Whig  friends.  So  soon  as  the  Irish  question 
is  over,  something  might  be  done  to  separate  the  Whigs  entirely 
from  the  Radicals — or  at  least  something  to  cause  the  G.  O.  M. 
to  begin  those  ten  years  of  probation  which  he  requires  before 
meeting  his  Maker. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  T.  M.  Healy  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

DUBLIN,  Dec.  10, 1885. 

MY  DEAR  L., — Better  try,  would  a  letter  to  Parnell  at  9 
Palace  Chambers,  Westminster,  find  him,  and  ask  him  to  make 
an  appointment  with  you.  There  is  no  necessity  to  refer  him 
to  the  correspondence  that  has  taken  place,  but  tell  what  you  feel 
in  a  position  to  say  on  behalf  of  your  party  leaders.  He  must 
see  that  Gladstone  must  come  in  if  we  are  to  get  anything,  and 
the  only  thing  I  see  to  be  settled  is  the  ritual  to  be  observed  in 

1  Mr.  Labouchere  quotes  the  greater  part  of  a  letter  from  Mr.  Herbert 
Gladstone,  dated  Dec.  7,  in  which  Mr.  Herbert  Gladstone  urges  the  all  im- 
portance of  the  Irish  question,  and  the  necessity  of  ascertaining  the  plans  of 
the  Irish  leaders. 

18 


274  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

bowing  the  Government  out.  I  presume  he  will  move  an  amend- 
ment to  the  Address,  unless  he  has  some  satisfactory  pledge  from 
Salisbury,  which  I  don't  believe,  and  I  don't  believe  in  the  power 
of  Salisbury  or  anybody  else  to  throw  dust  in  Parnell's  eyes. 
"  Hard  cash" T  or  a  Catholic  University  won't  bait  the  Tory  hook 
for  us  to  swallow.  I  'm  for  the  whole  hog  or  none.  I  think  it 
would  be  important  if  we  could  have  some  understanding  as  to 
the  procedure,  we,  in  the  opinion  of  your  leaders,  should  adopt 
as  to  the  terms  of  an  amendment  to  the  Address.  They  might 
prefer  it  should  be  one  they  could  speak  on  and  not  support,  or 
both  support  and  speak  on.  The  latter  seems  most  convenient 
in  case  it  is  thought  better  to  turn  the  Government  out  immedi- 
ately, so  as  to  allow  of  the  re-election  of  the  new  Ministers.  My 
view,  however,  is  (and  it  is  not  a  strong  one,  because  I  have  not 
heard  the  arguments  contra)  that  it  would  be  better  to  keep  the 
Tories  in  a  little  for  the  reasons  previously  given,  and  also  for 
the  additional  one  that  once  they  accept  our  help  they  will  all 
be  tarred  with  the  Irish  brush,  and  cannot  afterwards  complain 
of  your  party  accepting  an  alliance  by  which  they  are  not  ashamed 
to  profit.  "Sour  Grapes"  would  then  be  a  complete  answer  to 
them  in  opposition. 

The  stupidity  of  men  like  Harcourt  calling  us  "Fenians"  is 
inconceivable.  Personally  I  should  not  object  to  the  epithet, 
which  I  regard  by  no  means  an  ignoble  one,  but  I  can  well  fore- 
cast the  use  Churchill  would  make  of  it  in  opposition  with  Sir 
William  in  power  by  grace  of  the  "Fenian"  vote.  "The  Gods 
themselves  fight  in  vain  against  stupidity." 

If  you  exercise  any  control  over  the  Daily  News,  it  ought  to 
keep  your  party  straight  by  purging  it  of  the  rancour  of  defeat. 
Swear  at  us  in  private  as  much  as  you  like,  but  avoid  flinging 
bricks  of  the  boomerang  make.  The  Daily  News  calling  the 
Anglo-Irish  voters  "clots  of  turbid  intrigue"  must  have  cost  you 
a  trifle  at  the  polls.  We  can  slang  you  de  droit  because  we  are 
powerless  and  irresponsible,  but  a  governing  body  shall  go  "all 
delicately  marching  in  most  pellucid  air."  Excuse  the  philosophy ! 
— Yours, 

T.  M.  HEALY. 

1The  term  "hard  cash"  is  quoted  from  the  letter  of  Dec.  7,  from  Mr. 
Herbert  Gladstone  to  Ml-.  Labouchere,  already  referred  to  (see  note  page  273). 


i88s]  IN  OPPOSITION  275 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labovchcre 

40  PRINCE'S  GARDENS,  S.  W.f  Dec.  11, 1885. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — There  is  much  in  what  you  say, 
but  the  fear  is  that  anything  like  a  bargain  with  the  Irish  would 
be  resented  by  the  English  and  Scotch  workmen  and  that  a  Tory- 
Whig  Coalition  appealing  to  their  prejudices  against  a  Radical- 
Parnellite  alliance  would  carry  all  before  them  then.  This  is  a 
real  danger.  I  am  convinced,  from  personal  observation,  that 
the  workmen  will  not  stand  much  more  in  the  way  of  Irish  con- 
ciliation or  concessions  to  Parnell. 

I  am  clear  that  we  had  better  bide  our  time  and  rub  the 
Tories'  noses  well  in  the  mess  they  have  made.  Till  the  i6th. — 
Yours, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Parnell  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

IRISH  PARLIAMENTARY  OFFICES, 
LONDON,  S.  W.,  Dec.  17,  1885. 

DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — I  have  only  just  opened  your  letters, 
as  I  have  not  been  in  London  for  some  time.  I  will  try  and  give 
you  notice  the  next  time  I  am  in  town,  but  my  present  impression 
is  that  it  would  be  better  to  await  events,  and  see  what  attitude 
the  two  English  Parties  may  take  towards  each  other  at  the 
commencement  of  the  new  Parliament. — Yours  sincerely, 

CHAS.  S.  PARNELL. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  MANSIONS, 
ST.  JAMES'S  PARK,  Dec.  19,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  wrote  to  Hawarden  in  the  sense 
we  agreed  on  respecting  your  views — keeping,  however,  a  good 
deal  to  the  vague. 

Yesterday  morning  came  a  letter  from  Parnell.  Had  only 
just  received  my  letter,  was  passing  through  London,  wou'd  say 
when  he  was  coming  back.  Dilatory  as  usual.  In  the  afternoon 
Healy  arrived.  He  stayed  six  hours. 

The  sum  of  all  amounted  to  this: 


276  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

Parnell  is  half  mad.  We  always  act  without  him.  He 
accepts  this  position;  if  he  did  not  we  should  overlook  him. 
Do  not  trouble  yourself  about  him.  Dillon,  M'Carthy, 
O'Brien,  Harrington,  and  I  settle  everything.  When  we 
agree,  no  one  can  disagree.  We  are  all  for  an  arrangement 
with  the  G.  0.  M.  on  terms.  We  are  forming  a  "  Cabinet." 
We  shall  choose  it.  We  shall  pass  what  we  like  in  this 
Cabinet.  We  have  never  yet  let  out  any  secret.  The 
Kilmainham  revelations  were  let  out  by  Forster  and  O'Shea. 
Terms.— G.  O.  M.'s  plan. 

Details. — We  agree  to  nomination  for  two  Parliaments  or  five 
years;  we  like  it,  for  we  want  to  hold  our  own  against  Fenians. 
Protestant  religious  bodies  may,  if  wished,  elect  representatives. 

On  contracts,  we  would  agree  to  an  appeal  to  the  Judicial 
Committee  of  the  House  of  Lords. 

We  would  agree  to  any  landlord  having  the  right  to  sell  his 
land  to  Irish  State  on  valuation  by  present  Commissioners, 
provided  that  all  value  of  tenants'  improvements  were  deducted. 
We  do  not  go  so  far  in  land  matters  as  Chamberlain — certainly 
not  further. 

On  veto.  We  could  not  accept  the  veto  of  the  Imperial 
Parliament.  This  is  the  corner-stone  of  independence  in  the 
minds  of  Irishmen.  Several  plans  were  suggested — two-thirds 
majority,  etc.  I  think  something  might  be  worked  out  by  means 
of  a  sound  Privy  Council. 

We  would  assent  to  reasonable  amendments  by  the  Lords, 
but  we  should  ask  to  be  consulted. 

We  have  no  objection  to  a  Prince.  This  would  be  a  great 
sop  to  the  "Loyalists." 

Of  course  we  must  have  the  Police.  We  would  reduce  them 
to  3000 — there  are  too  many. 

We  claim  to  pay  a  quota — to  raise  this  quota  as  we  like ;  there  is 
no  fear  of  Protection .  Parnell  and  some  B  elf ast  manufacturers  are 
the  only  Protectionists  in  Ireland.  Perhaps,  however,  we  might 
give  bounties  for  a  time.  If  we  did,  we  should  pay  them,  not  you. 

If  Bill  thrown  out  in  Lords,  an  Autumn  Session;  if  thrown 
out  again,  to  be  brought  in  again  in  1886,  unless  Mr.  Gladstone 
prefers  a  dissolution. 


1 885]  IN  OPPOSITION  277 

No  Procedure  resolutions  until  Home  Rule  settled. 

There  are  only  three  Judges  to  whom  we  object.  One  is  old 
and  deaf  and  wants  to  retire,  another  is  dying  (Lawson). 

If  terms  agreed  to,  never  to  come  out  that  there  were  negotia- 
tions. We  would  regard  ourselves  as  members  of  the  Liberal 
party ;  occasionally  indulge  like  you  Radicals  in  a  wild-cat  vote, 
but  vote  with  Liberals  on  all  Parliamentary  issues. 

I  have  sent  this  with  a  lot  more  details  to  Hawarden. 

Rosebery  writes  to  tell  me  that  the  "revelations"  are  well 
received  in  Scotland,  and  that  there  will  be  no  difficulty  there. « 

Do  pray  think  how  very  advantageous  it  will  be  to  get  rid  of 
these  Irish. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUBEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  ST.  JAMES'S  PARK, 
Sunday,  Dec.  21,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Healy  came  again  to-day,  and  he 
tells  me  that  the  whole  gang  are  now  ready  to  accept  the  terms — 
provided  that  they  are  the  terms.  He  stands  absolutely  against 
an  Imperial  Parliament  veto  and  says  that  it  is  impossible. 

I  proposed  this: 

A  Royal  Prince — a  sort  of  King  Log. 

The  reorganisation  of  the  Irish  Privy  Council  on  a  fair  and 
reasonable  basis. 

The  veto  to  be  the  Governor  acting  by  the  advice  of  the 
Privy  Council — i.  e.t  of  a  majority. 

The  Governor  to  be  changed  on  petition  of  two-thirds  of  the 
Assembly. 

He  thinks  that  this  would  do,  and  I  have  sent  it  to  Hawarden. 

Healy  has  seen  Parnell,  and,  without  speaking  to  him  about 
negotiations,  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  there  will  be  no 
opposition  there. 

The  Conservatives,  I  hear,  have  it  in  consideration  to  submit 
the  Queen's  Speech  immediately,  and  to  put  up  one  of  their  men 

1  Statement  as  to  Mr.  Gladstone's  Home  Rule  Scheme  was  published  in 
the  Leeds  Mercury  and  the  Standard  on  December  17,  and  in  the  Times  and 
other  London  papers  of  December  18. 


278  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

to  propose  a  vote  of  confidence,  if  there  be  no  amendment  on 
our  side. 

I  asked  Healy  what  the  Irish  would  do  then?  He  said,  "If 
nothing  is  settled,  walk  out  probably."  "  Then?  "  I  asked.  "  Go 
with  the  Conservatives  and  turn  out  the  Liberals." 

But  it  seems  to  me  that,  without  being  sure  of  the  support  of 
the  Irish,  Mr.  Gladstone  could  hardly  take  office. 

If  so,  what  then?     Hartington? 

Hartington  is  cuts  with  Churchill.  He  says  that  he  has  in- 
sulted him  in  his  speeches,  and  that  he  will  never  speak  to  himagain. 

Churchill  told  me  a  few  weeks  ago  that  the  Conservatives  were 
determined  to  dissolve,  if  Home  Rule  were  attempted,  in  order  to 
protect  the  House  of  Lords.  Would  they  have  the  courage  to  dis- 
solve at  once?  Are  they  not  rather  calculating  on  Mr.  Gladstone 
not  being  able  to  form  a  Government,  and  either  coming  back 
with  the  Whigs,  or  dissolving  on  the  ground  of  a  deadlock? 

How  the  revelation  came  out  was  this: 

Herbert  Gladstone  told  Reed  of  the  Leeds  paper  his  father's 
views.  Reed  told  Mudford.  Could  this  have  been  stupidity, 
or  was  it  intentional  by  order  of  Papa? 

The  Pall  Mall  of  yesterday  was  directly  inspired  from  Hawar- 
den.  The  channel  was  Norman.  Certainly  the  ways  of  Mr. 
Gladstone  are  rather  more  mysterious  than  those  of  the  Heathen 
Chinee.  My  reading  of  it  is  that  he  is  simply  insane  to  come  in. 
.  .  .  The  Irish  are  suspicious  of  him,  and  intend  to  have  things 
clear  before  they  support  him.  Parnell  says  that  he  has  a  way  of 
getting  people  to  agree  with  him  by  the  enunciation  of  generalities, 
but  that  when  he  has  got  what  he  wants,  his  general  principles 
are  not  carried  out  as  might  have  been  anticipated.  This  is  so 
true  that  I  could  not  deny  myself  the  pleasure  of  letting  him  know 
it.  In  this  case,  he  will  have  to  be  a  good  deal  more  definite,  if 
he  is  to  count  on  the  Irish. 

My  own  conviction  is  that  if  the  Irish  get  Home  Rule,  they 
will — with  the  exception  of  the  land  question — surprise  us  by 
their  conservatism.  Their  first  thing  will  be  to  pass  some  sort 
of  very  drastic  legislation  against  the  Fenians. 

What  the  next  step  will  be,  I  don't  exactly  know.  The  Irish 
too  want  to  know. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 


i88s]  IN  OPPOSITION  279 

Lord  Randolph  Churchill  to  Lord  Salisbury 

INDIA  OFFICE,  Dec.  22,  1885. 

.  .  .  Now  I  have  a  great  deal  to  tell  you  Labouchere  came 
to  see  me  this  morning.  He  asked  me  our  intentions.  I  gave 
him  the  following  information.  I  can  rely  upon  him: 

(l)  That  there  would  be  no  motion  for  adjournment  after 
the  1 2th,  but  that  business  would  be  immediately  procceeded 
with  after  three  or  four  days'  swearing.  On  this  he  said  that, 
if  we  liked  to  go  out  on  a  motion  for  adjournment,  he  thought  the 
other  side  might  accommodate  us.  I  told  him  that  such  an 
ineffably  silly  idea  had  never  entered  our  heads.  Then  he  told 
me  that  he  had  been  asked  whether  he  could  ascertain  if  a  certain 
statement  as  to  a  Tory  Home  Rule  measure  which  appeared 
recently  in  the  Dublin  Daily  Express  was  Ashbourne's  measure, 
and  if  the  Tories  meant  to  say  "Aye"  or  "No"  to  Home  Rule; 
to  which  I  replied  that  it  had  never  crossed  the  mind  of  any 
member  of  the  Government  to  dream  even  of  departing  from  an 
absolute  unqualified  "No,"  and  that  all  statements  as  to  Ash- 
bourne's  plan  were  merely  the  folly  of  the  Daily  News.  Then  I 
was  very  much  upset,  for  he  proceeded  to  tell  me  that,  on  Sunday 
week  last,  Lord  Carnarvon  had  met  Justin  M'Carthy,  and  had 
confided  to  him  that  he  was  in  favour  of  Home  Rule  in  some 
shape,  but  that  his  colleagues  and  his  party  were  not  ready,  and 
asked  whether  Justin  M'Carthy 's  party  would  agree  to  an  enquiry, 
which  he  thought  there  was  a  chance  of  the  Government  agreeing 
to,  and  which  would  educate  his  colleagues  and  his  party  if 
granted  and  carried  through.  I  was  consternated,  but  replied 
that  such  a  statement  was  an  obvious  lie;  but,  between  ourselves, 
I  fear  it  is  not — perhaps  not  even  an  exaggeration  or  a  misrepre- 
sentation. Justin  M'Carthy  is  on  the  staff  of  the  Daily  News. 
Labouchere  is  one  of  the  proprietors,  and  I  cannot  imagine  any 
motive  for  his  inventing  such  a  statement.  If  it  is  true,  Lord 
Carnarvon  has  played  the  devil.  Then  I  told  Labouchere  that 
if  the  G.  O.  M.  announced  any  Home  Rule  project,  or  indicated 
any  such  project  and,  by  so  doing,  placed  the  Government  in  a 
minority,  resignation  was  not  the  only  course ;  but  that  there  was 
another  alternative  which  might  even  be  announced  in  debate, 
and  the  announcement  of  which  might  complete  the  squandering 


280  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

of  the  Liberal  party,  and  that  his  friend  at  Hawarden  had  better 
not  omit  altogether  that  card  from  his  calculations  as  to  his 
opponents'  hands.  Lastly,  I  communicated  to  him  that,  even 
if  the  Government  went  out  and  Gladstone  introduced  a  Home 
Rule  Bill,  I  should  not  hesitate,  if  other  circumstances  were 
favourable,  to  agitate  Ulster  even  to  resistance  beyond  constitu- 
tional limits;  that  Lancashire  would  follow  Ulster,  and  would 
lead  England;  and  that  he  was  at  liberty  to  communicate  this 
fact  to  the  G.  O.  M.1 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE, 
Dec.  22,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  got  a  long  letter  from  Hawarden 
this  morning.  The  substance  is,  "Let  the  Irish  get  a  positive 
assurance  from  the  Conservatives  that  they  will  do  nothing,  and 
his  tongue  will  be  free."  This  I  send  to  Healy. 

I  have  been  spending  the  morning  with  Churchill.  His 
plan  is  this.  Queen's  Speech  at  once — in  address  an  expression 
of  confidence.  Liberals  to  draw  G.  0.  M.,  Churchill  to  get  up 
and  say  that  obviously  he  intends  to  propose  Home  Rule.  If  so, 
adverse  vote  will  be  followed  by  dissolution.  Will  they  dare  to 
do  this?  Churchill  says  that  they  will,  and  that  I  might  privately 
tell  Mr.  Gladstone  this. 

He  vowed  that  Brett  had  given  Parnell  a  written  statement 
from  Mr.  Gladstone. 

Healy  told  me  to  ask  whether  there  were  any  direct  negotia- 
tions with  Parnell. 

Hawarden  replies:  "There  are  ho  negotiations  going  on 
between  Parnell  and  my  father,  who  has  constantly  from  the 
first,  declared,  etc.,  etc." 

Who  are  we  to  believe?  Mr.  Gladstone,  as  we  know,  has  a 
very  magnificent  conscience,  but  he  will  finish  by  being  too  clever 
by  half,  if  he  tries  to  play  Healy  off  against  Parnell,  who,  as  I 
told  you,  is  not  much  more  than  a  figurehead. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

1  Winston  Spencer  Churchill,  Lord  Randolph  Churchill,  vol.  ii. 


i88s]  IN  OPPOSITION  281 

P.  S. — Churchill  says  that  they  hear  that  Goschen  has  been 
playing  a  double  game — that  to  win  over  Hartington  he  became 
a  Balaam. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Dec.  23,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Has  this  occurred  to  you?  The 
Whigs  evidently  will  not  stand  Mr.  Gladstone's  proposals.  If 
you  therefore  were  to  rally  to  them,  you  would  clear  the  nest  of 
these  nuisances,  and,  as  Mr.  Gladstone  cannot  last  very  long, 
become  the  leader  of  the  Opposition  or  of  the  Government — a 
consummation  that  we  all  want. 

I  think  that  the  Customs  matter  would  not  be  a  sine  qua  non. 

Imperial  matters  would  be  few.  We  are  against  wars.  The 
main  Imperial  question  would  be  for  extra  money — in  case  of 
wars.  In  the  main  the  Irish  would  be  with  us — their  views  about 
land  are  much  yours — I  should  fancy  therefore  that,  provided  we 
have  a  clear  distinction  between  local  and  imperial  affairs,  we 
should  soon  be  the  very  best  of  friends. 

That  Mr.  Gladstone  will  go  on,  I  think  pretty  certain,  be- 
cause— excellent  and  good  man  as  he  is — he  sees  that  his  only 
chance  is  to  get  the  Irish.  He  is  now  engaged  in  a  game  of 
dodging.  He  has  invented  as  usual  a  "principle" — that  he  can 
go  into  no  details  until  he  officially  knows  that  the  Government 
will  do  nothing.  The  object  is  to  get  the  Irish  on  generalities. 
They,  however,  are  quite  up  to  this,  and  even  supposing  that  they 
were  to  vote  with  us,  they  would  at  once  turn  him  out,  if  he  were 
to  play  pranks.  I  do  not  quite  therefore  see  how  he  could  come 
in  without  some  sort  of  secret  understanding  with  them. 

Now,  what  would  satisfy  them? 

On  customs,  as  I  have  said,  there  would  be  no  great  difficulty. 

Ditto  on  protection  to  minorities. 

Remains  the  veto. 

They  are  anxious  to  get  over  it,  but  cannot  accept  the  Imperial 
Parliament.  Would  it  be  to  our  advantage  that  they  should? 
We  should  be  continually  having  rows  in  Parliament  about  their 
Acts. 

When  I  saw  Healy  on  Sunday  I  suggested  this: 


282  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

A  King  Log  in  the  person  of  a  Member  of  the  Royal  Family. 

The  veto  to  be  exercised  by  King  Log  with  the  consent  of  his 
Privy  Council. 

The  Privy  Council  to  be  entirely  reorganised,  or  the  present 
lot  to  be  swamped  by  men — not  ultras,  but  of  moderate  character. 

Things  would  then  work  out  by  some  of  the  Irish  Ministers 
being  made  Privy  Councillors. 

This  he  said  the  Irish  would  accept. 

Now,  with  such  a  plan,  with  nominated  Members  for  five 
years,  and  with  representation  of  Protestant  Synods  and  such 
like  bodies,  would  there  be  much  fear? 

What  the  Irish  are  afraid  of  are  the  Fenians.  This  is  why 
they  snap  at  nominated  Members,  although  they  may  perhaps 
openly  protest. 

If  I  can  get  hold  of  Morley,  I  will  have  a  talk  with  him;  he  is, 
I  think,  of  a  secretive  nature. 

Suppose  that  the  worst  occurs — an  immediate  dissolution — 
the  rural  cow  would  still  do  its  work,  for  it  might  be  put  that  the 
Tories  are  really  dissolving  not  for  Ireland  but  to  prevent  the 
cow  being  given.  On  other  urban  cows  Mr.  Gladstone  would  be 
very  much  in  your  hands,  for  to  get  into  power,  I  really  believe 
that  he  would  not  only  give  up  Ireland,  but  Mrs.  Gladstone  and 
Herbert. 

Churchill  is  going  to  Ireland.  It  is  an  old  promise,  he  says, 
to  go  for  Christmas  to  Fitzgibbon,  and  nothing  to  do  with  politics. 
Did  I  tell  you  that  when  I  said  that  I  knew  that  Carnarvon  had 
been  intriguing  with  Archbishop  Walsh,  he  said  that  Walsh  was 
a  very  ambitious  man,  and  would  not  long  remain  under  Parnell, 
and  that  Carnarvon  had  tried  to  square  the  Education  question 
with  him? 

Let  us  even  suppose  that  we  are  beaten  at  the  elections. 
There  would  a  a  Tory- Whig  Government.  How  long  would  it 
last? 

Hartington  seems  to  be  on  bad  terms  all  round.  Churchill 
tells  me  that  he  (Hartington)  declines  to  meet  him  or  speak  to 
him  on  the  score  of  his  speeches.  Evidently  he  is  confederating 
with  Goschen,  and  probably  Forster  will  become  a  third  in  the 
triumvirate?  They  do  not  strike  me  as  precisely  the  men  who 
will  ever  act  with  you,  unless  you  knock  under  to  them. 


i88s]  IN  OPPOSITION  283 

It  is  by  no  means  certain  that  we  should  be  beaten  at  an 
election.  Mr.  Gladstone  is  still  a  power.  Rosebery  says  that 
the  Scotch  are  all  right.  The  Irish  vote  has  turned  and  will  turn 
many  elections.  Our  cards,  therefore,  if  boldly  and  well  played, 
are  by  no  means  such  as  would  warrant  the  hands  being  thrown 
up. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

P.  5. — Is  Churchill  reckoning  with  his  party  when  he  talks 
about  an  immediate  dissolution?  How  will  its  Members  like 
being  sent  back  to  their  Constituents?  Many  are  hard  up. 

Mr.  T.  M.  Healy  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

DUBLIN,  Dec.  23, 1885. 

MY  DEAR  L., — Thanks  for  your  views.  If  Churchill  and  his 
lot  want  to  stay  in,  in  order  to  thwart  us  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  then 
I  say,  by  all  means,  let  them  have  a  few  months  office,  and  let  us 
give  them — well — purgatory  for  a  bit  and  see  how  they  take 
it.  It  seems  to  me  that  opinion  is  not  quite  ripe  enough  yet 
amongst  your  party  to  swallow  strong  meat.  I  therefore  think 
a  while  in  the  cold  would  teach  them  whether  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
wiser  than  the  tuppence  ha-penny  intelligence  of  his  rank  and 
file.  What  the  God-fearing  Radical  evidently  wants  is  a  course 
of  Tory  slaughter  abroad,  and  sixpence  on  the  income  tax,  and 
we  are  just  the  boys  to  help  them  to  it.  Opinion  here  in  loyalist 
circles  seems  to  take  it  for  granted  that  Gladstone  needs  a  check 
from  his  own  party,  and  I  confess  it  has  somewhat  the  aspect  of 
it.  So  it  seems  to  me  we  shall  have  to  turn  round  and  "  educate ' ' 
the  Liberal  party,  since  they  won't  allow  the  greatest  man  they 
ever  had  to  do  so.  A  pretty  mess  they  will  be  in,  unless  they 
seize  this  opportunity  under  his  leadership  of  consolidating 
their  party.  I  should  like  to  know  what  would  become  of  them 
without  Gladstone?  You  would  have  Chamberlain  and  Hart- 
ington  cutting  each  other's  throats  and  the  Tories  standing 
laughing  by,  profiting  by  your  divisions!  And  what  should  we 
be  doing?  You  may  be  sure  whatever  was  worst  for  the  Liberal 
party.  You  may  dissolve  fifty  times,  but  until  you  dissolve 
us  out  of  existence,  there  we  '11  be,  a  thorn — aye,  a  bayonet  in 
your  sides.  Here  we  were  with  the  chance  of  getting  all  Ireland 


284  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

round  to  some  moderate  scheme  that  would  end  for  ever  the  feud 
between  the  two  countries,  and  now  it  appears  that  some  gentle- 
men who  were  born  yesterday,  and  could  n't  tell  the  difference 
between  a  Moonlighter  and  an  Orangeman,  propose  to  spoil  the 
whole  thing — and  in  the  interest  of  the  "Empire"  forsooth.  I 
venture  to  think  that  the  statesman  who  had  the  boldness  to 
think  out  some  proposition  for  the  pacification  of  this  island — 
small  as  it  is — is  the  best  friend  the  Empire  has  had  for  many  a 
long  day !  My  heart  is  sick  when  I  read  the  extracts  telegraphed 
from  the  English  papers  to  think  these  are  the  idiots  we  have  to 
deal  with  and  to  argue  with.  It  is  almost  a  justification  of 
O' Donovan  Rossa.  They  have  Moses  and  the  Prophets,  but 
they  want  a  sign  from  Heaven.  Of  course,  I  know  there  are 
ten  thousand  difficult  details  to  be  settled,  but  these  men  don't 
want  to  settle  anything.  They  have  some  party  dodge  to  serve, 
and  Ireland  is  their  happy  hunting  ground.  Let  them  take  care 
that  the  quarrel  is  not  a  poisoned  morsel  for  their  dogs.  Churchill 
babbles  of  coming  over  to  rouse  the  Orangemen !  Je  lui  promets 
des  Emotions.  He  had  better  bring  Gorst  with  him  to  rally  the 
"  re-actionary  Ulster  members."  If  these  men  think  as  well 
as  talk  this  blague,  England  is  very  lucky  in  her  rulers. 

But  to  quit  apostrophe  (which  you  must  pardon)  what  are 
we  to  do?  Can  we  expect  Mr.  Gladstone  to  bear  the  battle  on 
his  single  shield?  Is  it  not  plain  that  if  we  plunge  into  Home 
Rule  plans  just  now  before  your  intelligent  public  apply  their 
enlightened  minds  to  it  we  shall  get  far  less  than  what  we  should 
get  by  waiting  and  worrying  you  for  a  few  years?  We  are  all 
young,  and  though  British  saws  won't  bear  me  out,  you  are  a 
very  fickle  and  unstable  people,  while  ours  has  the  tenacity  of 
700  years  to  carry  us  through.  We  can  wait  awhile  and  see  who 
gets  the  worst  of  it,  and  if  we  are  beaten  in  our  time — well,  there 
are  plenty  of  young  men  and  young  women  in  Ireland  to  breed 
future  difficulties  for  you.  Some  of  us  thought  as  Nationalists 
we  were  making  a  great  sacrifice  in  being  willing  to  give  up  our 
ideals,  but  the  spirit  in  which  we  are  met  shows  how  much  our 
surrender  is  appreciated  by  the  individuals  who  subscribed  for 
cartridges  for  the  Hungarians,  Italians,  and  Poles.  The  curse 
of  being  the  sport  of  your  two  parties  is  in  itself  the  best  argument 
for  the  necessity  of  Home  Rule. 


i88s]  IN  OPPOSITION  285 

As  for  Churchill,  a  great  deal  of  what  he  told  you  I  take  to 
be  bluff — told  for  the  purposes  of  intimidation.  I  don't  believe 
they  'd  dissolve,  and  if  they  are  so  inclined  we  ought  not  to  give 
them  the  chance  but  help  them  over  the  stile,  in  order  to  trip 
them  up  at  some  better  opportunity.  When  we  beat  them  a  few 
times,  say  on  their  estimates,  and  worry  them  on  adjournments 
and  motions,  they  will  be  in  a  much  less  heroic  mood  than  they 
are  now.  Slow  poison  is  a  better  medicine  for  them  than  the 
happy  dispatch!  By  hanging  on  their  skirts  for  a  few  weeks, 
snubbing  them  and  humiliating  them  at  every  opportunity,  they 
will  be  in  a  much  more  reasonable  frame  of  mind  than  they  are 
now,  and  meantime  perhaps  your  young  lions  could  be  reduced 
to  reason  and  your  old  ones  have  their  claws  trimmed.  It  is  no 
good  talking  about  the  details  of  Home  Rule,  when  the  very 
mention  of  the  word  gives  half  the  Liberal  party  the  shivers. 
The  men  that  won't  take  Mr.  Gladstone  for  a  leader  to-day  will 
have  to  take  Mr.  Parnell  to-morrow,  for  assuredly  things  cannot 
rest  as  they  are.  Mr.  Gladstone's  enemies  just  now  are  England's 
and  Ireland's  worst  enemies  also.  He  alone  can  settle  the  ques- 
tion moderately  and  satisfactorily,  yet  he  is  assailed  by  his  own 
party  as  if  he  were  some  reckless  junior  acting  not  from  the 
ripeness  of  knowledge  and  sagacity,  but  through  some  adoles- 
cent's lust  of  untasted  power!  Your  party  ought  to  get  up  an 
altar  to  Mundella  and  put  his  long  nose  in  the  tabernacle.  It  is 
sweet  to  know  that  he  has  controlled  the  education  of  British 
youth. 

A  happy  Christmas  to  you,  my  dear  Labouchere. 

T.  M.  HEALY. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

HIGHBURY,  MOOR  GREEN, 
BIRMINGHAM,  Dec.  23,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — Surely  Randolph's  policy  will  not 
work.  A  dissolution  witiiin  a  few  weeks  of  the  General  Election 
would  be  very  unpopular  and  indeed  unjustifiable,  unless  the 
whole  Liberal  party  followed  Mr.  Gladstone  in  a  Home  Rule 
proposal.  But  it  is  clear  he  will  be  left  in  the  lurch,  if  he  pro- 
poses it,  by  the  majority  of  the  party,  and  in  these  circumstances 


286  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

a  dissolution  would  not  help  the  Tories,  and  would  probably 
unite  the  Liberals  under  Hartington — while  Mr.  Gladstone  would 
retire. 

I  should  have  thought  the  Tory  game  would  have  been  to 
go  out  and  to  leave  Mr.  Gladstone  to  form  a  Government  if  he 
can. 

Unless  he  repudiates  Home  Rule  this  would  be  impossible, 
while  if  he  does  repudiate  it  he  would  have  the  Irish  against  him 
and  could  not  get  on  for  a  month. 

I  shall  be  in  London  on  the  4th  January,  and  could  dine  with 
you  to  meet  Randolph  on  that  evening — if  convenient. 

I  shall  not  be  up  again  till  the  nth.  Have  they  finally 
settled  to  go  straight  on  with  the  address  and  without  any 
adjournment? — Yours  very  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Lord  Randolph  Churchill  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

INDIA  OFFICE,  Dec.  24,  1885. 

DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — I  am  engaged  to  be  at  Hatfield  on  the 
4th.  That  compared  morally  with  your  proposed  "festin"will 
be  as  Heaven  is  to  Hell,  but  my  sinful  spirit  will  sigh  regretfully 
after  Hell.  I  am  making  enquiries  as  to  your  letter  which  you 
suggested  to  me  yesterday,  but  have  not  yet  received  a  reply. 

I  thought  over  Justin  M'Carthy's  story  about  Carnarvon. 
It  must  be  a  lie,  for  on  Sunday  last  the  latter  was  in  London. 
He  came  over  on  the  Friday  previous  for  the  Cabinets  on  the 
following  Monday  and  Tuesday. — Yours  ever, 

RANDOLPH  S.  C. 

P.  S. — The  weak  point  of  your  accusation  in  this  week's 
Truth  of  treachery  on  the  part  of  the  Government  is  that  the 
announcement  of  Gladstone's  having  written  a  letter  to  the 
Queen  first  appeared  in  The  Daily  News  I1 

Now  we  are  not  likely  to  take  Mr.  Hill3  as  our  confidant. 

1  In  Truth  of  December  24,  Mr.  Labouchere  commented  on  his  own  asser- 
tion that  a  letter  Mr.  Gladstone  had  written  to  the  Queen  was  communicated 
by  her  to  Lord  Salisbury,  who,  in  his  turn,  communicated  some  of  its  coutents 
to  the  Standard. 

•  Editor  of  the  Daily  News  from  1868  till  1886. 


i88s]  IN  OPPOSITION  287 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Dec.  24,  1885. 
MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Churchill  writes: 

"I  am  engaged  to  be  at  Hatfield  on  the  4th.  That, 
compared  with  the  society  of  you  and  '  Joe, '  ought  to  be  as 
Heaven  is  to  Hell,  but  my  sinful  spirit  sighs  regretfully 
after  Hell." 

They  go  on  without  adjournment,  estimating  that  the  swear- 
ing can  be  done  in  three  or  four  days. 

Rosebery  writes  to  say  that  he  has  heard  nothing  from  Hawar- 
den  since  he  wrote  urging  silence,  a  suggestion  which  he  supposed 
was  not  appreciated.  All  I  know,  he  says,  is  that  Mr.  Gladstone 
is  devilish  in  earnest  about  the  matter. 

Supposing  that  the  Radicals  went  against  Home  Rule,  the 
fight  with  the  Irish  would  be  long.  Don't  you  think  that  the 
country  would  think  that  it  would  be  better  fought  by  the  Con- 
servatives than  by  the  Radicals?  They  would — with  pleasure — 
make  it  last  long.  It  would  be  like  the  French  wars  to  Pitt. 

I  saw  Harcourt  yesterday.  He  told  me  that  he  had  been  to 
see  you,  and  seemed  to  me  sitting  on  the  fence.  "What  I  am 
thinking  of,"  he  said,  "is  that  if  the  Irish  found  that  they  could 
get  nothing,  they  would  resort  again  to  dynamite."  I  told  him 
that  I  thought  that  his  life  would  not  be  worth  a  week's  purchase. 
Was  there  ever  such  a  timorous  Sambo? 

Henry  Oppenheim  tells  me  that  Hartington  dined  with  him 
a  few  days  ago,  and  that  so  far  as  he  could  make  out  he  seemed 
inclined  to  stand  by  Mr.  Gladstone. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Ldbouchere 

HIGHBURY,  MOOR  GREEN, 
BIRMINGHAM,  Dec.  24,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — I  do  not  think  the  Irish  proposals 
are  possible.  If  they  refuse  control  of  Imperial  Parliament, 
there  is  really  nothing  left  but  separation.  A  hybrid  arrange- 
ment with  nominations,  Privy  Councils,  etc.,  would  not  stand 


288  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

examination  and  would  be  a  perpetual  source  of  friction  and 
further  trouble. 

I  do  not  believe  in  their  Conservative  legislation.  They 
mean  it,  but  the  American  Fenians  would  be  too  strong  for  them. 

There  is  much  fascination  in  your  suggestion  of  Radical  policy, 
especially  in  the  chance  of  dishing  the  Whigs  whom  I  hate  more 
than  the  Tories. 

But  it  won't  do.  English  opinion  is  set  strongly  against 
Home  Rule  and  the  Radical  party  might  be  permanently  (i.  e. 
for  our  time)  discredited  by  a  concession  on  this  point. 

We  must  "lie  low"  and  watch — avoiding  positive  committal 
as  far  as  possible. 

Did  I  tell  you  that  the  G.  O.  M.  thanked  me  for  my  last 
speech? 

I  doubt  if  he  has  made  up  his  own  mind  yet  or  formulated 
any  definite  scheme. 

He  has  several  times  repeated  the  phrase  "supremacy  of 
Parliament." 

I  am  informed  on  good  authority — the  best  in  fact — that 
there  is  no  truth  in  the  statement  that  he  has  submitted  a  state- 
ment to  the  Queen.  As  Randolph  is  quite  wrong  about  this, 
he  must  be  taken  as  a  doubtful  authority  in  other  matters  also. 

I  suppose  that  if  he  is  going  to  Ireland  he  will  not  be  back  in 
time  for  dinner  on  the  4th. — Yours  ever, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  ST.  JAMES'S  PARK, 
Christmas  Day,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — This  is  Churchill's  statement 
about  the  Queen.  When  they  came  in  they  were  told  that  there 
was  a  Home  Rule  scheme  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  and  it  was  shown 
to  Salisbury.  I  suspect  that  it  is  true,  for  no  sooner  was  Mr. 
Gladstone  out  than  Herbert  began — on  the  ground  that  his 
father  wanted  exactly  to  know  the  Irish  minimum,  in  order  to 
have  time  to  treat  the  matter  with  his  friends. 

I  place  as  the  basis  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  action  an  almost  insane 
desire  to  come  into  office.  Now  he  knows  that  so  far  as  he  is 


i885]  IN  OPPOSITION  289 

concerned,  this  can  only  be  done  by  squaring  the  Irish.  At 
76  a  waiting  policy  may  be  a  patriotic  one,  but  it  is  one  of  per- 
sonal effacement.  This  is  not  precisely  the  line  of  our  revered 
leader. 

Randolph  says  he  is  only  going  to  Ireland,  as  he  has  done  on 
previous  years,  to  pass  Christmas  with  Fitzgibbon. — Yours 
truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

P.  5. — Healy  and  I  have  elaborated  a  letter  containing  the 
Irish  minimum. 

Lord  Randolph  Churchill  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

INDIA  OFFICE,  Dec.  25,  1885. 

DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — My  correspondent  with  whom  you 
thought  you  might  correspond  with  advantage  does  not  wish 
now  to  be  drawn. 

Very  Private.  G.  O.  M.  has  written  what  is  described  to  me 
as  a  "marvellous  letter"  to  Arthur  Balfour,  to  the  effect  that  he 
thinks  "it  will  be  a  public  calamity  if  this  great  question  should 
fall  into  the  line  of  party  conflict,"  and  saying  that  he  desires  the 
question  should  be  settled  by  the  present  Government.  He  be 
damned! — Yours  ever, 

RANDOLPH  S.  C. 

Mr.  T.  M.  Healy  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

DUBLIN,  Xmas,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  L., — It  may  be  that  Brett  is  the  go-between,  and 
therefore  that  Gladstone  could  use  the  views  of  others  to  head 
off  Parnell.  Now  as  I  believe  we  should  speak  with  one  voice 
and  chime  the  same  note,  I  don't  think  it  would  be  well  for  me  to 
say  anything  at  present  beyond  thanking  you  for  all  your  kind- 
ness. I  mean  anything  to  any  one  but  yourself.  Harcourt's 
views  quite  interest  me,  and  he  is  quite  right,  for  if  our  people 
are  disappointed  after  the  visions  held  out  to  them,  they  cannot 
be  held  in.  This  country  could  easily  be  made  ungovernable  so 
far  as  the  collection  of  rent  or  legal  process  is  concerned,  and  the 
obstructors  would  find  they  were  not  dealing  with  playboys  but 

19 


290  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

with  resolute  men.  It  is  because  I  am  for  peace  and  feel  the 
necessity  for  it  that  I  am  willing  to  accept  any  reasonable  settle- 
ment, as  things  could  not  go  on  as  they  are  for  very  long.  If 
prices  next  year  are  as  bad  as  this  the  country  will  not  be  habitable 
in  any  case  for  rackrenters. 

I  can  hardly  believe  the  Tories  would  dissolve  if  your  party 
shows  itself  united.  It  is  on  your  divided  counsels  they  reckon. 
If  a  big  vote  goes  against  them  it  will  knock  the  bottom  out  of 
their  mutterings.  Besides  supposing  the  dissolution  goes  against 
them,  they  must  count  the  cost.  Defeat  would  mean  the  instant 
carrying  of  any  schemes  Gladstone  liked  to  put  forward  and  no 
nonsense  from  the  Lords.  The  Peers  could  not  reject  it,  and  if 
they  did  and  Gladstone  threatened  to  dissolve  against  their 
existence — ban  soir!  I  am  firmer  therefore  in  my  opinion  that 
Randolph's  talk  was  mere  funkee-funkee,  a  train  laid  to  explode 
in  Hawarden,  and  I  shall  be  surprised  if  it  goes  off. 

Your  fellows  will  never  realise  the  price  they  will  be  willing 
to  pay  us  until  they  see  the  Market  opened  and  a  wretched 
minority  sitting  and  smiling  across  the  floor  from  the  seats  they 
themselves  should  recline  on !  Their  teeth  won't  begin  to  water 
till  the  1 2th  Jan.  Therefore  I  believe  a  waiting  game  is  our 
game,  for  surely  it  is  of  as  much  consequence  to  your  men  that 
they  should  govern  England  as  it  is  to  ours  that  they  should 
govern  Ireland?  The  fact  that  Parnell's  reserve  is  so  provoking 
to  the  English  is  his  best  justification  in  our  minds.  Chamber- 
lain's point  about  whether  the  Imperial  Ministry  which  enjoyed 
the  confidence  of  the  English  on  Home  affairs  should  resign  if 
defeated  by  our  help  on  foreign  questions  is  a  poser.  It  seems 
to  me  the  federal  idea  cannot  work  unless  you  too  have  a  local 
and  an  Imperial  Parliament. — Yours, 

T.  M.  HEALY. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  "The  Times"* 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  S.  W.,  Dec.  26, 1885. 
"WHAT  THE  PARNELLITES  WOULD  ACCEPT." 

SIR, — During  the  last  Parliament  I  voted  frequently  with  the 
Irish  members  against  the  Government.  I  did  so  because  I  was 

1  Times,  Dec.  28,  1885. 


i88sl  IN  OPPOSITION  291 

opposed  to  exceptional  measures  of  coercion,  and  believed  that  the 
remedy  for  Irish  wrongs  consisted  in  allowing  Ireland  to  manage 
her  own  affairs,  subject  to  full  guarantee  being  given  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  integrity  of  the  Empire.  In  this  view  it  would  ap- 
pear that  I  was  only  in  advance  by  a  year  or  two  of  the  opinions 
of  many  Liberals  and  Radicals  and  of  some  Conservatives. 

Owing  to  the  course  of  action  which  I  pursued,  I  was  thrown 
into  personal  and  friendly  relations  with  many  of  the  Irish  and 
Parliamentary  party,  which  relations  I  have  maintained,  and  I 
think  I  am  able  to  form  a  pretty  accurate  estimate  of  their  views. 

First,  however,  I  will  say  with  your  permission  a  word  re- 
specting Irish  opinion,  and  the  position,  so  far  as  I  can  judge  it, 
of  the  Irish  political  leaders.  Among  those  of  them  opposed  to 
the  present  state  of  things  the  majority  are  not  separatists,  some 
because  they  are  in  favour  of  the  Union  with  the  British  Isles, 
others  because  they  are  aware  that  separation  is  practically 
impossible.  Those  who  aspire  to  separation  are  an  infinitesimal 
minority,  and  they  subordinate  their  opinions  to  those  of  their 
colleagues. 

Throughout  Ireland  a  passionate  desire  for  Home  Rule  is 
entertained  by  all  with  the  exception  of  the  landlords,  the 
officials,  and  the  Orangemen.  A  good  many  of  the  landlords 
are  disposed,  however,  to  rally  to  it,  while  the  area  over  which 
the  Orangemen  hold  sway  is  growing  smaller  and  smaller  every 
year.  Many  of  the  Presbyterians  of  Ulster  have  already  thrown 
in  their  lot  with  the  Home  Rulers.  There  is  now  but  one  single 
northern  Irish  county  left  which  does  not  return  a  Parnellite — 
viz.  Antrim.  In  four  Ulster  counties — Monaghan,  Cavan,  Done- 
gal, and  Fermanaugh — no  one  but  Parnellites  have  been  chosen. 

The  desire  for  Home  Rule  is  irrespective  of  any  wish  to  alter 
the  land  system,  although  this  wish  is  an  important  factor  in 
Irish  feeling.  Agriculture  is  almost  the  only  industry  in  Ireland, 
and  one  reason  why  the  landlords  are  disliked  is  that,  with  some 
few  exceptions,  they  have  set  themselves  in  antagonism  to  the 
aspirations  of  the  nation  for  Home  Rule.  The  Land  Act  has 
disappointed  and  dissatisfied  every  one,  for,  while  the  landlords 
declare  that  their  property  has  been  confiscated,  the  farmers  cry 
out  that  their  property — ».  e.  their  improvements,  have  been 
handed  over  to  be  rented  for  the  landlords'  benefit  in  the  teeth 


292  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

of  the  Healy  clause.  It  is  hopeless  to  suppose  that  an  Imperial 
Parliament,  composed  of  a  majority  of  gentlemen,  who  know  very 
little  about  the  real  merits  of  the  case,  can  settle  this  great  ques- 
tion, at  which  it  has  been  tinkering  for  generations,  and  I,  as  an 
Englishman,  obfect  to  have  my  time  taken  up  in  discussing  it 
any  more,  and  trying  to  accommodate  the  differences  between 
Irish  renters  and  Irish  rentees.  Mr.  Chamberlain  has  rightly 
objected  to  the  Imperial  Exchequer  being  saddled  with  purchase 
money  to  be  paid  to  the  landlords,  and  I  think  our  duty  to  them 
would  be  performed  if  we  were  to  insist,  in  any  settlement  of  the 
Irish  question,  that  they  shall  be  entitled  to  call  on  the  Irish 
treasury  for  a  fair  price  for  their  estates  whenever  they  want 
to  sell  them,  due  regard  being  had  to  the  tenants'  statutably 
recognised  ownership  of  his  improvements.  Thus  the  landlords, 
if  they  object  to  live  in  an  island,  the  inhabitants  of  which  enjoy 
the  advantage  of  self-government,  would  be  able  to  leave  it  with 
the  equivalent  for  their  land  in  their  pockets  in  hard  cash. 
With  their  departure  the  police  difficulty  would  disappear,  and 
with  it  the  necessity  of  England  paying  £1,500,000  per  annum 
for  the  Royal  Irish  Constabulary,  although  the  Irish  insist  that 
they  only  require  a  force  of  %  this  size,  and  are  willing  to  pay 
for  it  themselves. 

Speaking  generally,  and  if  the  land  system  were  satisfactorily 
settled,  it  may  be  said  that  the  Irish  are  not  Radicals  in  one  sense 
of  the  word.  Their  habit  of  thought  is  Conservative.  They  are, 
like  the  French,  somewhat  too  inclined  to  look  and  state  inter- 
ference in  everything.  Their  tendency  is,  as  M.  Guizot  said  of 
the  French,  to  fall  into  a  division  between  administrators  and 
administered.  Their  hostility  to  law  is  not  to  law  abstractedly, 
but  to  the  law  as  presenting  what  they  regard  as  an  alien 
ascendency.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that,  had  they  a  Parlia- 
ment of  their  own,  they  would  surprise  us  by  their  Conservative 
legislation. 

Apart  from  the  Nationalists,  who  form  the  great  bulk  of  the 
nation,  are  the  Fenians.  They  are  comparatively  speaking  few 
in  number.  Their  strength  consists  in  being  able  to  tell  the 
Irish  that  Home  Rule  never  will  be  granted,  and  that  Ireland 
must  either  separate  from  us,  or  be  ruled  by  us  in  local  as  well 
as  in  Imperial  affairs. 


1885]  IN  OPPOSITION  293 

That  the  Nationalists  have  to  a  certain  extent  acted  with  the 
Fenians  is  true.  But  could  they  do  otherwise?  They  had  to 
fight  against  a  common  opponent.  Between  a  Nationalist  and 
a  Fenian  there  is  as  much  difference  as  between  the  most  moder- 
ate Whig  Squire  who  sat  in  last  Parliament  on  the  Liberal  benches 
and  me.  Yet  we  both  voted  frequently  together  against  the 
Conservatives.  The  Nationalists  are  the  Girondists,  the  Fenians 
are  the  Jacobins.  Like  the  Girondists  they  make  common  cause 
against  a  common  enemy.  (He  carries  on  this  simile  lengthily.) 
Mr.  Parnell  and  his  political  friends  have  substituted  constitu- 
tional agitation  for  lawless  and  revolutionary  agitation.  He  has 
only  succeeded  in  this  by  persuading  his  countrymen  that  his 
action  will  result  in  success.  If  he  be  doomed  to  failure,  the 
Fenians  will  once  more  gain  the  upper  hand  in  Ireland. 

The  Times  has  more  than  once  suggested  that  the  Irish  Par- 
liamentary party  should  state  precisely  what  they  want.  They 
want  a  Parliament.  How  possibly  can  they  be  expected  to  say 
officially  to  what  limitations  and  to  what  restrictions  they  would 
submit  for  the  sake  of  a  definite  settlement  before  some  responsi- 
ble English  statesman,  with  a  strong  following  at  his  back,  is 
prepared  to  give  them  a  Parliament?  They  would  indeed  be 
fools  were  they  to  make  such  a  tactical  blunder.  In  any  negotia- 
tion of  which  I  have  ever  read,  bases  are  agreed  on  before  either 
party — and  certainly  before  the  weaker  party — specifies  details. 

I  think,  however,  I  am  not  far  wrong  in  saying  the  following 
scheme  would  be  accepted : 

i .  Representation  in  the  Imperial  Parliament  upon  Imperial 
matteres  alone.  This  would  require  a  hard  and  fast  definition  as 
to  what  is  Imperial  and  what  is  local,  together  with,  as  in  the 
United  States,  some  legal  tribunal  of  appeal. 

The  Army,  the  Navy,  the  protection  of  the  British  Isles,  and 
the  commercial  and  political  relations  with  foreign  nations  would 
be  regarded  as  Imperial  matters,  and  probably  there  would  be 
no  insuperable  difficulty — if  it  were  deemed  expedient — in  arrang- 
ing a  Customs  Union,  such  as  that  of  the  German  Zollverein 
before  the  German  Empire  came  into  existence,  leaving  it  to  the 
Irish  to  foster  their  industries,  if  they  please,  by  means  of  boun- 
ties. There  would  be  an  Imperial  budget,  which  would  be  sub- 
mitted each  year  to  the  Imperial  Parliamen^  with  the  Irish 


294  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

sitting  in  it.  Each  country  would  contribute  its  quota  according 
to  population  and  property.  If  more  were  required,  the  pro- 
portions would  be  maintained.  Each  island  would  raise  its 
quota  as  it  best  pleased. 

2.  The  Government  of  Ireland — a  Viceroy,  a  Privy  Council, 
a  Representative  Assembly,  Ministers. 

(1)  The  Viceroy — a  member  of  the  Royal  family,  with  a 
salary  of  £25,000  per  annum. 

(2)  The  Privy  Council. — The  present  Privy  Council  consists 
of  about  fifty  individuals,  all  of  them  anti-Nationalists,  and  some 
of  them  virulently  so.     The  Council  would  have  to  be  reorgan- 
ised.   This  might  be  done  by  nominating  100  new  Councillors, 
men  of  moderate  views,  but  who  would  frankly  accept  the  ar- 
rangement and  endeavour  to  give  practical  effect  to  it.     The 
Council  would  gradually  be  increased  by  the  admission  of  the 
Irish  Ministers. 

(3)  House  of  Representatives. — Its  members  would  be  elected 
as  with  us  according  to  population.     As  a  concession,  however, 
it  would  be  agreed  that  one-fourth  of  the  members  might  be 
nominated,  either  during  two  Parliaments  or  for  five  years. 

(4)  Ministers. — They  would  be  selected  from  the  Parliament- 
ary majority  as  with  us.     The  Viceroy  would  call  upon  the 
leader  of  the  majority  to  form  a  Cabinet.     He  would,  however, 
retain  the  constitutional  right  of  the  Queen  to  dissolve. 

3.  The  Veto. — This  would  be  reserved  to  the  Viceroy,  with 
the  consent  of  his  Privy  Council.     Of  one  thing  I  am  absolutely 
certain.     It  is  that  no  arrangement  is  possible  which  would  give 
the  veto  to  the  Imperial  Parliament.     The  Irish  object  to  this, 
because  they  consider  that  it  would  convert  their  assembly  into 
a  mere  debating  Society.     We — although  we  seem  just  now 
enamoured  with  it — should  soon  find  that  all  legislation  in  Eng- 
land would  soon  be  brought  again  to  a  standstill,  as  we  should 
be  perpetually  debating  Irish  bills.     The  Irish  would  also  object 
to  the  Queen  exercising  the  veto  by  the  advice  of  her  Council, 
for,  practically,  this  would  mean  the  veto  of  those  representing 
the  majority  in  the  English  Parliament.     The  Privy  Council  is, 
unfortunately,  historically  odious  in  Ireland.     But  were  it  recast, 
it  is  probable  that  the  Irish  would  not  object  to  the  Veto  which 
I  have  suggested. 


i88s]  IN  OPPOSITION  295 

4.  Protection  of  Minorities. — They  would  already  be  pro- 
tected by  the  veto,  by  the  nominated  members  and  by  the 
Orangemen,  who  would  return  a  considerable  contingent;  but 
the  Irish  would  go  even  further  than  this. 

(1)  No  contract  existing  or  entered  into  could  be  set  aside  by 
Irish  legislation.     In  the  event  of  any  one  feeling  himself  ag- 
grieved in  this  matter,  he  might  appeal  to  the  Judicial  Committee 
of  the  House  of  Lords. 

(2)  Any  Landlord  would  have  the  right  to  insist  upon  his 
land  being  bought  by  the  Irish  state  on  the  estimate  of  its  value, 
by  the  Land  Judges,  due  consideration  being  taken  of  tenants' 
improvements. 

5.  The  Army  in  Ireland  and  the  Fortresses  would  be  under 
the  orders  of  the  Imperial  Ministry,  much  as  is  the  case  in  the 
United  States  of  America. 

I  am  far  from  saying  that  the  Irish,  if  left  to  draw  up  the 
settlement,  would  insert  these  conditions.  Many  of  them  savour 
of  tutelage  and  distrust.  But  I  am  pretty  certain  that,  although 
in  discussion  they  might  claim  more,  they  would,  if  they  could 
not  get  more,  accept  this  scheme  with  an  honest  intention 
to  make  it  workable.  Less  they  would  not  accept,  and  for  a 
very  good  reason.  If  their  leaders  are  to  be  responsible  for 
the  peace,  tranquillity,  and  prosperity  of  Ireland,  they  must  have 
full  powers  to  act,  and  the  scheme  of  Government  must  in 
the  main  be  acceptable  to  the  majority  of  the  governed. 

At  present  we  have  arrived  at  a  Parliamentary  deadlock. 
No  measure  dealing  with  Ireland  can  be  passed  in  the  existing 
House  of  Commons  without  the  aid  of  the  Irish  contingent.  If 
a  Coalition  Government  were  to  succeed  in  passing,  either  in 
this  Parliament  or  a  subsequent  Parliament,  a  half-hearted 
measure,  the  Irish  would  decline  to  accept  it.  They  would 
simply  refuse  to  act  on  it,  and  thus  confusion  would  become  worse 
confounded.  Experience  has  proved  that  any  proposal  not  to 
count  on  the  Irish  vote  is  outside  the  area  of  practical  politics. 
Experience  has  also  shown  that  the  rival  political  parties  will 
not  subordinate  their  differences  to  any  anti-Irish  policy.  Such 
schemes  are  like  the  kiss  of  peace  of  the  French  Assembly 
during  the  French  Revolution.  They  sound  all  very  well  but 
last  about  half  an  hour. 


296  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

We  have  then  to  decide  whether  we  will  try  the  experi- 
ment of  federalisation  under  the  restrictions  for  the  unity 
of  the  Empire,  and  the  protection  of  the  minority  in  Ireland 
such  as  I  have  roughly  indicated;  or  whether  we  will  embark 
in  a  career  of  what  practically  amounts  to  war  between  the  two 
islands. 

Many  Conservatives  are  excellent  citizens,  others  are  party 
men.  The  latter  would  probably  not  object  to  the  latter  alter- 
native. It  would  unquestionably  have  the  effect  of  the  French 
wars  in  the  days  of  George  III.  They,  I  fully  admit,  would  be 
better  able  to  carry  out  a  system  of  repression  than  the  Radicals. 
They  therefore  would  in  the  main  hold  office.  Domestic  reforms 
would  be  neglected,  the  Radical  chariot  would  stand  still.  You, 
Sir,  I  apprehend,  are  not  a  Radical,  and  though  you  may  not  be 
influenced  by  this  arrest  of  the  chariot,  you  would  not  regret 
the  propter  hoc.  But  it  ought  to  lead  any  Radical  to  pause  and 
reflect. 

I  did  not  show  myself  a  fanatical  worshipper  of  Mr.  Glad- 
stone during  the  last  Parliament,  in  fact  I  must  have  voted 
against  him  as  often  as  I  voted  for  him.  In  my  address  to  my 
constituents  I  said  that  I  should  raise  my  voice  against  any 
Administration,  no  matter  what  it  be  called,  that  lags  on  the 
path  of  progress  or  that  falls  into  error.  My  constituents 
have  been  good  enough  to  leave  it  to  me  to  decide  what  is 
lagging  and  what  is  error.  If  the  Conservatives  will  at  once 
bring  in  a  Bill  dealing  with  Ireland  in  the  manner  I  have 
indicated  they  shall  have  my  vote  as  far  as  that  Bill  is  con- 
cerned. But  I  gather  that  they  have  determined  to  oppose  a 
non  possumus  to  all  such  demands  and  not  to  go  beyond 
including  Irish  in  any  general  scheme  for  local  Government  in 
both  islands. 

I  turn  therefore  to  Mr.  Gladstone.  His  public  utterances 
lead  me  to  believe  that  he  is  prepared  to  sacrifice  his  well-earned 
ease,  and  to  endeavour  to  settle  the  question  in  a  manner  satis- 
factory to  us  and  to  the  Irish.  His  experience  is  vast,  his  patriot- 
ism is  undoubted,  his  tactical  skill  is  unrivalled.  I  would  suggest 
therefore  that  we  should  give  him  full  powers  to  treat  for  us  with 
the  Irish,  and  that  we  should  support  him  in  any  arrangement 
which  meets  with  his  sanction.  The  Irish  have  always  had  a 


i88s]  IN  OPPOSITION  297 

sneaking  affection  for  him;  they  will  recognise  that  he  has  to 
count  with  English  public  opinion,  and  they  will  concede  far 
more  to  him  than  to  any  other  negotiator  that  we  might  select. 
I  have  seen  that  Lord  Hartington  and  Mr.  Forster  have  pro- 
nounced against  Home  Rule,  and  that  the  former  is  negotiating 
with  Mr.  Goschen.  Lord  Hartington  generally  pronounces 
against  a  measure  as  a  preliminary  to  accepting  it;  I  do  not 
therefore  ascribe  much  importance  to  his  declaration.  Mr. 
Forster,  during  the  last  Parliament,  distinguished  himself  by 
uttering,  in  season  and  out  of  season,  gibes  and  sarcasms  against 
his  former  colleagues.  Mr.  Goschen,  a  man  of  great  ability  and 
honesty,  could  not  find  one  English  Liberal  Constituency  to 
return  him,  and  sits  in  Parliament  by  the  good  favour  of  the 
Edinburgh  Conservatives.  With  all  respect  therefore  to  the 
two  gentlemen,  I  hardly  think  that  the  Liberals  will  accept  a 
policy  from  them.  If  we  are  to  judge  by  what  happened  in  the 
last  Parliament  they  have  no  followers.  .  .  .  Let  Mr.  Gladstone 
then  boldly  declare  himself  for  a  well  considered  measure  of 
Home  Rule.  .  .  . 

H.  LABOUCHERE.1 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Times. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Dec.  26,  1885. 
MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Ha  warden  writes:  .  .  .  * 

This  is  rather  my  plan — commerce  would  fall  within  the 
province  of  Imperial  matters — religion,  too,  might ;  taxation  is  a 
little  more  difficult,  for  it  would  require  much  definition.3 

1  An  old  Radical  M.  P.  writes  criticising  this  letter:  "Mr.  Labouchere  has 
never  been  regarded  by  us  as  a  Radical  at  all,  but  as  a  Separatist,  and  we  have 
always  profoundly  distrusted  his  advice  upon  the  few  occasions  on  which  it 
was  possible  to  regard  it  as  serious." — Times,  Jan.  4,  1886. 

'  Mr.  Labouchere  here  quotes  a  letter  he  had  received  from  Mr.  Herbert 
Gladstone,  stating  Mr.  Gladstone's  determination  not  to  formulate  any  scheme 
which  might  be  taken  as  a  bribe  for  Irish  support,  nor  to  shift  from  his  posi- 
tion, before  the  Government  had  spoken,  or  the  Irish  party  had,  in  public, 
terminated  their  alliance  and  put  the  Tories  in  a  minority  of  250  to  330. 

»Mr.  Gladstone's  idea  of  a  veto  was  that  it  might  be  exercised  by  the 


298  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

Will  the  Irish  trust  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  go  with  the  Liberals 
on  general  assurances?  They  may,  and  they  may  not;  they  are 
very  suspicious.  Were  I  they,  I  should,  and  then  upset  him  if 
he  dodged  later  on. 

Anyhow,  I  think  that  we  may  take  it  that  Mr.  Gladstone  is 
determined  to  have  a  try  at  Irish  legislation  if  he  gets  the  chance, 
and  the  fact  that  the  Irish  can  at  any  time  stop  him  in  his  career 
will  lead  him  to  go  great  lengths. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Lord  Randolph  Churchill  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

2  CONNAUGHT   PLACE,   W.,  Dec.  26,   1885. 

DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — You  have  definitely  captured  the 
G.  O.  M.  and  I  wish  you  joy  of  him.  He  has  written  another 
letter  to  A.  Balfour,  intimating,  I  understand,  without  overmuch 
qualification,  that  if  Government  do  not  take  up  Home  Rule  he 
will. 

It  is  no  use  your  writing  to  Lord  Salisbury.  The  Prime 
Minister  cannot  disclose  the  intentions  of  the  Government  except 
in  the  ordinary  course  when  Parliament  meets. 

I  shall  look  forward  to  Monday's  Times. — Yours  ever, 

RANDOLPH  S.  C. 

I  think  Joe  had  much  better  join  us.  He  is  the  only  man  on 
your  side  who  combines  ability  with  common  sense. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

BIRMINGHAM,  Dec.  26,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — The  G.  O.  M.  is  sulking  in  his  tent. 
No  one  can  get  a  word  from  him — he  has  not  replied  to  letters 
from  Hartington,  Rosebery,  and  myself. 

Further  consideration  convinces  me  that  no  scheme  on  the 
lines  of  Rosebery's  proposal  is  worth  attention. 

There  is  only  one  way  of  giving  bona  fide  Home  Rule,  which  is 
the  adoption  of  the  American  Constitution : 

Crown  on  ordinary  matters  on  the  advice  of  an  Irish  Minister,  but,  on  certain 
questions,  e.  g.  religion  or  commerce,  perhaps  taxation,  by  the  Imperial 
Ministry. 


i885]  IN  OPPOSITION  299 

1.  Separate  legislation  for  England,  Scotland,  Wales,  and 
possibly  Ulster.     The  three  other  Irish  Provinces  might  combine. 

2.  Imperial  legislation  at  Westminster  for  foreign  and  Colo- 
nial affairs,  Army,  Navy,  Post  Office,  and  Customs. 

3.  A  Supreme  Court  to  arbitrate  on  respective  limits  of 
authority. 

Of  course  the  House  of  Lords  would  go.  I  do  not  suppose 
the  five  Legislations  could  stand  a  second  Chamber  apiece. 

Each  would  have  its  own  Ministry  responsible  to  itself. 

There  is  a  scheme  for  you.  It  is  the  only  one  which  is  com- 
patible with  any  sort  of  Imperial  unity,  and  once  established  it 
might  work  without  friction. 

Radicals  would  have  no  particular  reason  to  object  to  it,  and 
if  Mr.  Gladstone  is  ready  to  propose  it — well  and  good! 

But  I  am  sick  of  the  vague  generalities  of  John  Morley  and 
the  Daily  News,  and  I  am  not  going  to  swallow  Separation  with 
my  eyes  shut.  Let  us  know  what  you  are  doing. 

The  best  thing  for  us  all  is  to  keep  the  Tories  in  a  little  longer. 
Let  them  bear  the  first  brunt  of  the  situation  created  by  the  state 
of  Ireland  and  the  disappointment  of  the  Nationalists.  But 
how  the  devil  is  this  to  be  managed?  If  the  Irishmen  choose 
they  can  turn  the  Government  out  at  any  moment.  Can  you 
not  persuade  them  that  it  is  clearly  to  their  interest  to  keep  them 
in  for  one  session — while  Mr.  Gladstone  is  preparing  public 
opinions? — Yours  very  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

HIGHBURY,  BIRMINGHAM,  Dec.  27,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE,— I  thought  the  scheme  alleged  to 
have  been  submitted  to  the  Queen  was  one  of  recent  date. 

If  the  rumour  refers  only  to  the  time  of  the  late  Government, 
there  is  not  much  in  it.  Mr.  Gladstone  had  no  scheme  then — 
only  the  vaguest  ideas  as  to  the  necessity  of  doing  something. 

It  is  pretty  evident  that  whatever  else  he  may  do  to  "crown 
his  career"  he  will  break  up  the  Liberal  party. 

His  proposal  about  veto  is  a  transparent  fraud.  It  could 
not  last  as  an  effective  control  for  a  single  Parliament.  I  wish 


300  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

some  one  would  start  the  idea  of  a  Federal  Constitution  like  the 
United  States.  I  do  not  believe  people  are  prepared  for  this 
solution  yet,  but  it  is  the  only  possible  form  of  Home  Rule.  It  is 
that  or  nothing. 

In  my  opinion  Mr.  Gladstone  cannot  carry  his  or  any  other 
scheme  just  now,  and  if  the  Irishmen  force  the  pace  the  only 
result  will  be  a  dissolution  and  the  Tories  in  a  working  majority. 

Let  them  refuse  to  put  the  Tories  out  just  yet  unless  Mr. 
Gladstone  publicly  declares  himself.  If  they  were  to  put  the 
Tories  out  to-morrow,  and  then  turn  on  the  Liberals  in  a  month, 
they  would  secure  only  a  strong  Coalition  both  in  the  House  and 
the  country  for  resistance  to  all  Irish  claims. 

I  believe  the  true  policy  for  every  one  except  Mr.  Gladstone 
is  to  "wait  and  see." — Yours  very  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Dec.  28,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — If  I  might  venture  to  criticise — 
you  assume  that  the  Conservatives  and  the  Irish  would  both 
act  as  you  wish.  Neither  would.  The  Conservatives  are  sharp 
enough  to  decline  to  retain  power  in  order  to  be  discredited 
warming-pans,  and  the  Irish  must  demonstrate,  now  that  they 
have  carried  the  country. 

Writing  to  Hawarden,  I  have  hinted  at  your  views,  and  asked 
whether  a  below  the  gangway  amendment  would  be  accepted, 
stating  generally  that  the  Irish  question  must  be  dealt  with. 
If  the  G.  O.  M.  and  if  you  were  to  vote  for  this,  we  should  still 
be  beaten.  The  party  would  not  have  pledged  itself  to  it  as  a 
party;  the  Irish  would  be  satisfied,  and  if  on  some  issue  in  a 
month  or  two  we  had  an  election,  we  should  get  the  Irish 
vote. 

I  should  say  myself  that  it  would  be  far  better  not  to  have  the 
Irish  at  Westminster  at  all;  this  would  meet  the  conundrum  of 
an  Imperial  and  an  English  Ministry.  As  a  statistical  fact,  Ire- 
land does  not  now  contribute  much  more  than  the  cost  of  her 
civil  Government  to  the  Imperial  Exchequer.  Let  her  contribute 
nothing,  or  some  fixed  sum  for  armaments  (which  she  probably 


i88s]  IN  OPPOSITION  301 

would  not  pay).  She  would  be  like  the  Dominion.  We  should 
hold  the  country  through  the  army  and  the  fortresses,  and 
if  she  tried  to  separate,  we  should  suspend  the  Constitution. 
But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  she  would  not  try.  The  Irish  "idea  of 
patriotism  is  to  serve  the  country  at  a  good  salary,  and  to 
get  places  for  cousins,  etc.  You  would  see  that  Irish  politics 
would  become  a  perpetual  vestry  fight  for  the  spoil. — Yours 
truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Dec.  30,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — This  is  the  last  from  Hawarden, 
which  I  transmit  to  Healy.  The  "  channel "  is  in  reply  to  a  letter 
from  Healy  saying  that  if  Mr.  Gladstone  prefers  other  channels, 
he  (Healy)  must  take  leave  to  withdraw.  It  is  all  very  well,  but 
Parnell  will  not  be  such  a  fool  as  to  show  his  hand  for  the  benefit 
of  Mr.  Gladstone.  .  .  . I 

Mr.  T.  M.  Healy  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

DUBLIN,  Dec.  30,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  L., — I  have  been  in  the  country  holidaying.  The 
statistics  you  want  I  think  could  be  got  from  Col.  Nolan's  return, 
which  alas  shows  that  you  profit  £3,000,000  per  annum  out  of 
us.  I  speak  from  memory.  Go  to  Smith  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons' Library,  and  ask  him  to  find  it  out  for  you.  He  can  get 
you  this  and  any  other  statistical  facts  you  need.  But  some 
thirty  years  ago  your  people  dropped  showing  a  separate  Irish 
account  and  bulked  the  whole  thing  in  order  to  diddle  us,  and 

1  Mr.  Labouchere  here  quotes  in  full  a  letter  from  Mr.  Herbert  Gladstone 
to  himself,  stating  that,  if  communications  have  to  take  place  with  the  Irish 
party,  only  one  channel  will  be  recognized,  viz.  Parnell.  But  he  adds  he  does 
not  think  there  is  any  chance  of  bringing  their  party  to  the  scratch  before 
Parliament  meets,  because  of  the  insufficiency  of  the  knowledge  they  possess 
to  enable  them  to  decide  on  any  action,  before  the  Address  debate  is  actually 
in  progress.  He  also  points  out  how  impossible  it  would  be  for  Mr.  Gladstone 
to  adopt  Mr.  Chamberlain's  policy  of  waiting,  and  adds  that  if  the  Liberal 
Party  chooses  to  break  up  over  an  Irish  Parliament  it  cannot  be  helped. 


302  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1885 

therefore  it  is  not  easy  to  reckon  the  figures  out.  O'Neill  Daunt, 
however,  can  supply  everything  you  can't  get  elsewhere.  I  think 
Randolph  must  have  pulled  the  longbow  rather  taut  to  you  in 
every  way.  I  don't  believe  anything  he  has  been  saying.  As 
to  Chamberlain  he  must  be  crazy  to  write  that  way  to  Morley. 
Give  the  G.  O.  M.  power  and  he  could  form  a  Cabinet  in  a  week 
minus  Joe,  and  the  Gates  of  Birmingham  should  not  prevail 
against  it  (it  is  "  Hell "  in  the  original).  Your  letter  ought  to  do 
much  good.  You  greatly  improved  it.  It  has  been  quoted  into 
all  the  Irish  papers  and  commented  on.  I  am  glad  it  appeared, 
but  of  course,  I  know  nothing  of  the  genesis.  I  agree  with  you 
about  representation  in  the  Imperial  Parliament.  Your  people 
seem  to  shy  at  it,  and  it  would  be  better  for  us  not  to  have  it, 
unless  your  side  insists.  Still  there  will  be  many  Irishmen  loath 
to  surrender  all  representation,  but  they  cannot  have  everything. 
I  don't  think  Fottrell  can  physic  Chamberlain's  disease.  He  's 
going  to  be  a  Mugwump.  I  wish  him  joy  of  the  profession.  His 
chance  was  to  be  first  Lieutenant  to  the  G.  O.  M.  cum  jure  sue, 
and  he  is  going  to  degenerate  into  a  kind  of  small  Forster  species 
of  Sorehead.  I  note  what  you  say  about  our  papers.  Like 
Brer  Rabbit  we  ought  to  "lay  low"  just  now.  Small  wonder 
if  Gladstone  should  be  intimidated  into  minimising  coercion. 
The  Heathen  rage  very  furiously  against  him.  I  mistrust 
Grosvenor's  influence  on  Hawarden.  If  the  old  man  was  ten 
years  younger,  I  'd  be  for  keeping  in  the  Tories  till  we  got  County 
Boards  out  of  them  in  order  to  chasten  your  party  in  the  cold 
winds  of  opposition.  Our  people  won't  have  any  fraud  of  a  Bill 
made  for  the  Whigs  to  swallow.  We  shall  be  reasonable,  but 
so  must  your  party.  We  can  wait,  for  we  are  used  to  it.  Your 
party  leaders  represent  personal  ambition,  and  are  in  more  of  a 
hurry. — Faithfully  yours, 

T.  M.  HEALY. 

Mr.  T.  M.  Healy  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

DUBLIN,  Dec.  31,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  L., — I  return  H.  Gladstone's  letter  which  I  regard 
as  most  important.  I  am  very  glad  to  think  Gladstone  is  not 
being  intimidated  out  of  his  position  by  the  pitiless  storm  beating 


i885]  IN  OPPOSITION  303 

upon  him.  I  agree  that  nothing  satisfactory  can  be  done  until 
the  House  meets,  and  we  shall  then  have  a  week  before  the  Ad- 
dress is  read,  and  our  party  will  have  met,  and  we  shall  know  its 
mind,  while  personal  communications  will  have  become  possible 
amongst  the  Liberal  leaders  also.  I  think  Chamberlain  is  ruin- 
ing himself.  If  Gladstone  sticks  to  his  text  he  can  easily  form  a 
Cabinet  without  him  or  the  Mugwumps,  and  then  where  will  they 
be?  Trevelyan's  speech  to-day  is  very  bad  too,  but  they  are  all 
ciphers  until  Gladstone  puts  his  one  before  their  noughts. 

I  have  your  letters  safely  and  will  return  all  your  former 
enclosures  to-night.  I  am  not  writing  this  from  my  house  or 
I  'd  send  them  with  this.  I  have  kept  copies  of  nothing  and 
burn  your  letters,  as  the  police  could  always  find  a  pretext  here 
to  walk  in  on  you  and  read  your  billets-doux. — Faithfully  yours, 

T.  M.  HEALY. 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Jan.  I,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — No,  I  do  not  think  that  he  (Mr. 
Gladstone)  is  hedging;  from  his  personal  standpoint,  he  knows 
that  his  only  chance  of  coming  in  is  to  get  over  the  Irish,  and  then 
to  get  over  his  own  party.  Waiting  games  may  suit  others,  but 
he  cannot  wait,  and  already  considers  that  he  has  been  out  for 
very  long.  He  thought  so  a  week  after  Salisbury  came  in,  and 
at  once  commenced  with  the  Irish. 

This,  I  should  imagine,  is  his  game.  On  the  Address,  he  will 
endeavour  to  put  the  Tories  in  a  minority,  with  or  without  the 
Irish.  He  then  expects  to  be  called  upon  to  form  a  Government. 
He  will  at  once  begin  to  enter  privately  into  terms  with  the  Irish. 
These  terms  will  be  much  the  same  sort  of  thing  as  I  wrote  in  the 
Times,  or  non-appearance  at  all  in  the  Imperial  Parliament,  after 
the  manner  of  Canada.  If  he  cannot  make  terms,  it  may  be  that 
his  desire  for  office  will  lead  him  to  come  in,  but  if  he  is  to  be 
believed,  he  will  not.  What  will  then  be  the  position?  He 
cannot  well  dissolve,  so  there  must  inevitably  be  a  Palmerston- 
Hartington  Government,  whilst  the  Radicals  would  be  split  up, 
some  going  for  the  Irish,  others  against.  This,  it  seems  to  me, 
means  the  destruction  of  the  Radical  Party  for  many  a  year.  Mr. 
Gladstone  knows  that  he  is  too  big  an  individuality  to  be  the 
head  of  a  Coalition  Government,  moreover  he  has  burnt  his  ships. 

Suppose,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Conservatives  dissolve  at 
once,  after  Mr.  Gladstone  has  pronounced  in  favour  of  Home 

304 


i886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         305 

Rule.  On  what  cry  should  we  go  to  the  country,  if  not  on  Home 
Rule?  Evidently  those  opposed  to  it  would  give  the  preference 
to  the  Conservatives,  for  they  one  and  all  would  have  put  their 
foot  down,  whilst  we  should  be  tainted  with  the  unholy  thing, 
even  if  we  had  made  a  Jonah  of  Mr.  Gladstone.  So  long  as  the 
Irish  question  is  not  settled,  the  Tories  must  have  the  pull  in  the 
country,  and  the  Radicals  must  remain  discredited  and  disunited. 

This  being  so,  is  it  not  worth  while  to  take  the  other  course? 
It  is  by  no  means  certain  that  we  should  be  beaten  at  an  election. 
Mr.  Gladstone  is  still  a  power.  The  Irish  have  votes  which 
would  turn  several  places.  The  electors  may  be  divided  into 
people  who  think  about  the  question  of  Ireland,  and  those  who 
don't.  For  the  latter  a  "cow"  might  be  invented,  whilst  many 
of  the  former  would  say  that  as  one  English  party  has  gone  for 
Home  Rule,  it  must  come,  and  if  so  as  speedily  as  possible. 

The  real  enemies  of  the  Radicals  are  the  Whigs,  and  they  are 
essentially  your  enemies.  It  is  a  mistake  to  undervalue  them. 
They  have  always  managed  to  jockey  the  Radicals.  They  hang 
together;  they  have,  through  Grosvenor,  the  machine;  they 
dominate  in  Clubs  and  in  the  formation  of  Cabinets.  They 
may  ally  themselves  with  you  re  Ireland,  but  this  will  be  for  their 
benefit,  not  yours.  Nothing  would  give  them  greater  pleasure 
than  to  betray  you  with  a  kiss,  for  you  are  their  permanent  bogey. 
Once  you  are  out  of  the  way,  and  the  sheepof  Panurge,  *.  e .,  the  vast 
majority  of  the  Liberal  M.  P.s,  would  be  boxed  up  in  their  fold. 
At  every  election  we  should  have  shilly-shally  talk,  very  vague  and 
apparently  meaning  much,  followed  by  half-hearted  measures. 

All  this  is  why  I  still  hold  that  the  Radical  game  is  to  go  with 
Mr.  Gladstone  on  Irish  matters,  and  to  use  him  in  order  to  shunt 
them  and,  if  possible,  the  Whigs — not  that  this  course  is  not  full 
of  danger,  but  that  it  seems  to  me  to  present  less  danger  than 
any  other. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

HIGHBURY,  MOOR  GREEN, 

BIRMINGHAM,  Jan.  3,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — The  more  I  look  at  the  thing,  the 
less  I  like  it.  Whatever  we  do  we  shall  be  smashed  for  a  cer- 


306  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

tainty.  The  question  is  whether  it  is  better  to  be  smashed  with 
Mr.  Gladstone  and  the  Parnellites  or  without  them. 

I  believe  the  anti-Irish  feeling  is  very  strong  with  our  best 
friends — the  respectable  artisans  and  the  non-Conformists. 

One  thing  I  am  clear  about.  If  we  are  to  give  way  it  must 
be  by  getting  rid  of  Ireland  altogether,  and  by  some  such  scheme 
as  this. 

Call  Ireland  a  protected  state.  England's  responsibility  to 
be  confined  exclusively  to  protecting  the  country  against  foreign 
aggression. 

England's  authority  to  be  confined  exclusively  to  the  measures 
necessary  to  secure  that  Ireland  shall  not  be  a  point  d'appui  for 
a  foreign  country. 

The  financial  question  to  be  settled  by  a  fixed  annual  payment 
to  cover: 

1.  Ireland's  share  of  the  Debt. 

2.  A  sinking  fund  to  extinguish  it  in  fifty  years. 

3.  The  cost  of  the  military  garrison. 

Query:  Should  we  hold  the  customs  till  this  Debt  is  extin- 
guished, or  find  some  other  security  for  payment? 

In  order  to  gild  the  pill  for  the  English  sympathisers  with 
Protestant  and  landowning  minorities : 

Ireland  to  be  endowed  with  a  Constitution — the  elements  to 
be: 

1 .  A  Governor  with  power  to  dissolve  Parliament — no  veto. 

2.  A  Senate,  probably  elected  but  with  some  qualifications 
to  secure  a  moderately  Conservative  Assembly. 

3.  A  House  of  Commons. 

To  meet  the  prejudices  of  English  manufacturers  and  work- 
men, a  Commercial  treaty  pledging  Ireland  not  to  impose  duties 
on  English  manufactures.  (Bounties  might  be  left  open.) 

In  this  case  Ireland  could  have  no  foreign  relations.  It  is 
impossible  to  allow  her  to  communicate  direct  any  more  than 
Australia  and  Canada.  But  this  was  a  great  source  of  complaint 
by  Irish  patriots  in  the  time  of  Grattan's  Parliament. 

The  difficulties  of  any  plan  are  almost  insurmountable, 
but  the  worst  of  all  plans  would  be  one  which  kept  the  Irish- 
men at  Westminster  while  they  had  their  own  Parliament  in 
Dublin. 


1 886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         307 

I  end  as  I  began.  We  shall  be  smashed  because  the  country 
is  not  prepared  for  Home  Rule. — Yours  very  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Jan.  4,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  think  your  scheme  an  excellent 
one;  only  Ireland  is  so  wretchedly  poor  a  country,  that  it  will 
not  pay  its  contribution;  that,  however,  is  a  detail. 

I  am  perfectly  certain  that  Mr.  Gladstone  is  determined  to 
go  on,  and  that  any  idea  of  a  Whig  cum  Radical  demonstration 
to  induce  him  to  keep  quiet  will  not  avail.  Rosebery  writes, 
"He  is  boiling  over  with  the  subject,"  and  you  know  how,  when 
once  an  idea  gets  hold  of  his  mind,  it  ferments;  as  Hawarden  said 
in  a  recent  letter,  he  is  determined  to  stand  or  fall  by  it. 

I  suspect  that  this  scheme  is  passing  through  his  ingenuous 
mind.  To  get  in  by  the  Irish  vote,  then  to  ask  the  Conservatives 
to  consult  with  him  as  to  a  plan.  The  Irish,  however,  are  quite 
cute  enough  not  to  help  him  in,  until,  one  way  or  another,  they 
are  secured  against  this. 

I  have  just  received  this  from  Churchill : 

"The  Queen's  Speech  will  be  delivered  on  the  2ist.  No 
mention  of  Home  Rule.  What  a  blessing  it  would  be  if  we 
could  get  rid  of  the  Whigs  and  the  Irish  at  one  coup.  But 
I  am  afraid  that  this  will  be  impossible,  and  that  the  former 
as  usual  will  knock  under." 
— Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  the  "Times"  (Extract) 

REFORM  CLUB,  Jan.  2,  1886. 

You,  sir,  possibly  have  not  been  brought  closely  in  contact 
with  the  Irish  leaders.  I  have;  and  more  practical,  sensible,  I 
may  indeed  say,  more  moderate  men,  when  not  under  the  influ- 
ence of  temporary  excitement,  I  never  came  across.  ...  I  have 
indeed  been  greatly  struck  with  their  largeness  and  broadness  of 
view,  which  contrasts  advantageously  with  our  supercilious  mode 
of  treating  political  opponents  who  have  not  the  advantage  of 


3o8  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

being  Anglo-Saxons,  our  insularity,  and  our  want  of  facility  to 
grasp  new  ideas,  or  to  realise  the  necessity  of  adapting  our- 
selves to  circumstances,  as  Bunsen — one  of  our  great  admirers — 
said,  what  most  struck  him  during  his  residence  here  was  "the 
deficiency  of  the  method  of  handling  ideas  in  this  blessed 
island." — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE.1 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Times. 

Lord  Randolph  Churchill  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

INDIA  OFFICE,  Jan.  7, 1886. 

DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — I  should  be  delighted  to  dine  with  you 
on  the  1 2th  or  I5th,  if  that  would  be  convenient  and  agreeable 
to  you.  I  think  Joe  is  quite  right  to  walk  warily.  After  all,  if 
the  G.  O.  M.  goes  a  mucker  it  may  be  a  good  thing  for  everybody. 
He  has  always  disturbed  the  equilibrium  of  parties  and  done  no 
good  to  any  one  except  himself.  However,  you  will  probably 
think  me  prejudiced. — Yours  ever, 

RANDOLPH  S.  CHURCHILL. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Jan.  7,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Churchill  will  come  on  the  15th 
if  that  suits  you.  Is  there  any  other  Conservative  or  Liberal 
you  would  like? 

I  suspect  that  Mr.  Gladstone  will  not  give  the  necessary 
pledges  to  the  Irish.  They  have  an  idea  that  he  might  get  in 
by  their  votes,  and  then  try  to  make  terms  with  the  Conserva- 
tives, and  bring  in  a  milk  and  water  measure.  He  talks  of  faith 
in  him.  Singularly  enough  they  have  not  that  amount  which 
they  ought  to  have. 

There  is  also  the  possibility  that  they  will  take  a  bird  in  the 
hand  from  the  Conservatives — in  the  form  of  some  local  county 
measure,  which  would  strengthen  them  in  Ireland,  and  which 
would  give  them  leverage. 

If  this  be  so,  how  about  a  resolution  in  their  favour — some- 

1  The  Times,  January  4,  1886. 


i886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         309 

what  vague — which  would  win  them  over  to  us  in  case  of  an 
election,  and  which  would  not  be  carried? — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  T.  M.  Healy  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

DUBLIN,  Jan.  7,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  L., — I  am  afraid  I  badly  repay  all  your  letters.  I 
greatly  fear  that  Chamberlain's  tone  shows  that  even  if  he  accepts 
the  proposals  in  principle,  he  will  help  the  Whigs  to  make  Mr. 
Gladstone  minimise  them,  and  thus  they  may  prove  inaccept- 
able  to  Ireland.  Then  it  will  be  the  Land  Act  misery  over  again, 
or  rather  your  party  would  not  be  let  in  by  us  to  pass  a  maimed 
measure,  and  so  the  Tories  would  reap  the  profit  of  our  dissen- 
sions. Beati  possidentes!  However,  I  think  when  your  men  get 
blooded  by  a  few  skirmishes  with  the  Tories,  they  will  be  willing 
enough  to  patch  things  up  to  turn  them  out.  With  regard  to 
Morley's  point  about  the  Veto,  I  recognise  that  the  bigger  powers 
we  get  the  more  natural  would  be  your  desire  for  some  guarantee 
against  their  abuse — the  better  the  Parliament,  the  more  effec- 
tive the  Veto.  As  the  scientist  would  say,  you  want  it  in- 
creased according  to  the  square  of  the  power.  A  Governor- 
General,  I  think,  would  meet  this,  and,  for  my  part,  I  think 
it  would  capture  or  render  quiescent  a  lot  of  the  loyalists 
if  he  were  a  prince.  A  few  Royal  levees  and  some  judi- 
cious jobs  would  probably  bring  most  of  these  gentry  round  in 
a  short  time. 

Your  letters  have  been  admirable,  and  I  am  sure  have 
done  good,  though  none  of  us  could  write  to  the  Times  or 
acknowledge  it  in  any  way.  Moreover,  except  through  ex- 
tracts in  the  Express,  none  of  us  see  it  here.  A  single  copy 
of  any  newspaper  from  across  the  Channel  does  not  enter  the 
office  of  United  Ireland!  However,  as  we  are  not  your  rulers 
this  is  no  crime. 

The  usual  stuff  I  see  is  being  talked  about  Home  Rule  leading 
to  separation,  and  how  the  American-Irish  would  not  accept  the 
settlement,  nor  the  Fenians.  The  fellow  who  writes  as  "an  old 
Fenian  "  in  the  St.  James'  Gazette,  extracts  from  which  I  have  seen, 
is  Dick  Piggott,  late  of  the  Irishman  newspaper,  who  swindled 


3io  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

every  Fenian  Fund  he  could  milk,  and  whom  the  boys  would 
not  touch  with  the  tongs.  I  undertake  to  say  that  if  a  suitable 
Home  Rule  scheme  be  proposed,  though  Parnell  said  he  could 
offer  no  guarantees,  that  we  could  call  a  National  Convention 
to  ratify  it,  and  therefore  could  treat  as  a  traitor  every  one  who 
afterwards  opposed  it,  or  did  not  loyally  abide  thereby.  More- 
over, terrible  as  are  the  American- Irish  in  English  eyes,  I  believe 
— and  I  have  visited  and  spoken  at  every  big  city  from  New 
York  to  San  Francisco,  and  from  Galveston  on  the  Mexican 
Gulf  to  Montreal  in  Canada — that  we  could  summon  a  repre- 
sentative Convention  in  Chicago,  including  the  Clan  na  Gael, 
the  ancient  Order,  and  the  Rossa  crowd  which  would  endorse  the 
settlement  and  thereby  effectually  dry  up  the  well-springs  of 
revolutionary  agitation.  But  to  do  this  we  must  get  no  sham 
vestry,  but  an  assembly  that  would  gratify  the  national  pride  of 
the  Celtic  race.  Our  people  in  America  will  only  be  too  glad  to 
be  allowed  to  mind  their  own  business,  and  many  of  the  wealthy 
among  them  will  come  back  and  settle  down  here,  investing 
their  capital  and  teaching  the  people  the  industries  they  have 
learnt  abroad.  The  mass  of  them  are  as  Conservative  as  any 
in  the  world,  and  when  I  told  a  crowded  meeting  the  night  of  the 
Chicago  Convention  in  1881 — referring  to  wild  advice  that  had 
been  offered — "that  the  Irish  leaders  were  no  more  to  be  bought 
by  American  dollars  than  by  English  gold,"  the  sentiment  was 
cheered  to  the  echo  and  was  mutilated  accordingly  in  the  report 
of  the  Irish  World. 

However,  this  is  running  a  long  way  ahead  of  events,  and  this 
idea  of  mine  is  not  one  that  I  have  yet  broached  to  my  colleagues. 

I  expect  to  be  over  on  Tuesday,  but  hope  to  be  allowed  to  run 
back  then  till  the  2ist,  as  I  suppose  we  shall  have  nothing  to  do 
in  the  interval.  I  don't  suppose  we  shall  make  up  our  minds 
as  to  whether  we  shall  move  an  amendment  to  the  Address,  till 
after  we  hear  it  read.  Even  then  this,  I  presume,  would  depend 
as  to  whether  a  modus  vivendi  with  you  was  arrived  at,  for  if 
the  Tories  are  in  earnest  with  their  threat  to  dissolve,  the  best 
tactics  would  be  to  have  no  Irish  Debate  and  to  cook  their 
goose  on  a  side  issue — Egypt,  Bunnah,  or  what-not. — Truly 
yours, 

T.  M.  HEALY. 


i886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         311 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

HIGHBURY,  MOOR  GREEN, 
BIRMINGHAM,  Jan.  8,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — The  isth  will  suit  me.  Many 
thanks.  I  fancy  Randolph  Churchill  will  be  more  talkative  if 
we  are  alone,  unless  you  know  any  one  whom  he  likes  to  meet. 
I  leave  it  entirely  in  your  hands. 

Mr.  Gladstone  has  asked  me  to  meet  him  on  Tuesday.  Per- 
haps he  may  be  explicit,  but  I  am  not  sanguine. 

If  the  Irish  are  ready  to  give  the  Tories  a  chance,  by  all  means 
let  us  wait  and  see  results. 

I  could  not  support  any  resolution  at  present.  If  it  were 
vague,  the  Irish  would  not  thank  us — if  it  were  definite,  I  doubt 
if  it  would  be  good  policy  to  vote  with  it. 

We  are  sure  to  have  an  opportunity  on  the  Local  Govern- 
ment Bill — if  we  desire  to  take  advantage  of  it. — Yours  very 
truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Jan.  9,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  had  a  letter  from  Healy  yester- 
day. So  far  as  I  understand  the  matter,  things  are  in  this 
position. 

Mr.  Gladstone  is  in  his  tent.  He  will  do  nothing  until  the 
Address.  He  then,  I  think,  inclines  to  an  understanding  with 
the  Irish,  for  this  is  a  sine  qua  non  of  his  coming  in. 

Healy  says  that  the  Irish  will  decide  nothing  until  the  Ad- 
dress. They  will  not  aid  in  turning  out  the  Tories  unless  there 
is  a  specific  understanding  as  to  what  Mr.  Gladstone's  Bill  is  to 
be.  If  such  arrangement  be  satisfactory,  they  will  agree  to  vote 
them  out  on  Burmah,  Egypt,  or  anything  else,  so  as  to  render  it 
difficult  for  the  Tories  to  dissolve.  They  perceive  the  difficulties 
of  Mr.  Gladstone's  position  and  are  just  now  in  a  yielding  mood, 
but  beyond  a  certain  point  they  cannot  go,  as  their  own  people 

would  turn  against  them. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 


312  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Jan.  12,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  have  just  got  a  long  letter  from 
Herbert  Gladstone.  So  far  as  I  can  make  out,  Mr.  Gladstone 
has  in  reality  abandoned  none  of  his  projects.  But  he  is  cornered 
by  the  fact  that  the  Irish  will  not  aid  him  to  get  in  without  very 
definite  assurances. 

Healy  writes  to  say  that  he  will  be  here  on  Thursday,  and 
that  nothing  has  been  decided  as  to  the  course  of  the  Irish.  He 
suggests — if  some  agreement  can  be  come  to — saying  not  one 
word  on  Home  Rule,  but  turning  the  Government  out  upon  a 
bye  issue,  Egypt,  Burmah,  or  anything.  I  have  written  to  ask 
whether  the  following  plan  would  be  assented  to: 

(i)  Turn  out  Government  on  bye  issue.  (2)  Have  some  sort 
of  temporary  scheme  for  governing  Ireland.  (3)  Appoint  some 
sort  of  dilatory  Commission.  (4)  Bring  in  Bill  next  year.  I  have 
explained  that  this  would  only  be  possible  if  Mr.  Gladstone  could, 
in  some  way  or  other,  make  it  clear  to  the  Irish  what  the  Bill  is 
to  be,  and  also  that  he  would  stand  or  fall  on  it. 

This  would  give  time  to  educate  public  opinion,  and  to 
have  good  Bills  on  English  subjects,  whilst  it  would  render  it 
impossible  for  the  Conservatives  to  dissolve. 

I  don't  know  whether  I  could  get  the  Irish  to  assent — sup- 
posing that  Mr.  Gladstone  does — but  I  should  be  sanguine  of 
doing  so.  They  have  now  so  arranged  their  party  that  practi- 
cally Healy,  O'Brien,  Harrington,  and  Parnell  can  do  precisely 
what  they  like.  Parnell  I  put  last,  because  he  will  agree  to  the 
decisions  of  the  other  three. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

P.  S. — I  write  this,  because  I  shall  not  be  able  to  explain  it 
to  you  this  evening  before  Randolph  Churchill. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Jan.  15,  1886. 
MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  should  have  been  delighted  to 


i886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         313 

dine  with  you  on  the  3ist,  but  I  have  already  asked  some  people 
to  dine  with  me  on  that  day. 

Harcourt  favoured  me  during  an  hour  yesterday  with  his 
views.  They  are  vague  and  misty.  He  has  got  it  into  his  head 
that  the  Government  mean  a  Coercion  Bill.  If  they  are  wise, 
I  should  think  that  they  would  bring  one  in,  and  thus  split  up 
the  Liberals  at  once. 

Mr.  Gladstone  is  evidently  meditating  some  coup  on  his  own 
account,  and  to  retire  in  a  blaze  of  Irish  fire- works.  He  does  not 
want  to  wait,  but  if  he  acts,  he  holds  that  he  must  act  at  once. 
He  is  by  no  means  in  a  good  humour  with  his  late  colleagues. — 
Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Healy  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

DUBLIN,  Jan.  15,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  L., — Herbert  Gladstone  is  totally  wrong 
about  me.  I  neither  saw  nor  heard  from  nor  communicated  with 
Churchill  or  any  member  of  the  Government  since  the  House 
rose — I  except  the  Irish  law  officers  whom  I  meet  daily  in  Court, 
but  whom  I  never  exchange  a  word  with  on  politics.  I  am  now 
just  of  the  same  opinion  I  always  held,  but  I  don't  see  what  we 
can  do  till  your  party  move.  It  would  play  the  devil  with  us 
were  we  to  put  the  Liberals  into  office  and  then  have  them  to  turn 
round  on  us,  by  proposing  a  settlement  we  could  not  accept. 
We  cannot  buy  a  pig  in  a  poke.  You  may  say  we  could  turn 
them  out  at  a  minute's  notice.  That  seems  very  easy  on  paper 
by  counting  parties,  but  if  we  are  going  to  play  this  game  suc- 
cessfully the  fewer  ministries  we  turn  out  the  better,  as  any 
naked  exhibition  of  our  power  in  a  gratuitous  way  would  be 
sure  to  get  you  a  majority  if  you  dissolved  on  that  issue.  No, 
we  prefer  instead  of  having  to  put  you  out,  not  to  let  you  get 
in,  until  there 's  a  straightforward  arrangement  made.  At  least 
this  is  what  seems  to  me  to  be  commonsense.  I  know  nothing  of 
the  Tory  plans.  Of  course,  if  they  are  fools  enough  to  play  your 
hand  by  proposing  coercion  our  hands  may  be  forced — I  only 
write  on  the  assumption  that  they  have  sense.  What  I  say  is 
let  Mr.  Gladstone  satisfy  Parnell  and  the  whole  thing  is  settled. 


314  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

Was  it  from  Grosvenor's  experience  and  anecdotes  of  the  Irish 
party  that  the  Duke  of  Westminster  called  us  debauchees?  Were 
we  too  lax  in  our  attendance  on  Parliament  to  please  Lord  Richard 
— prowling  round  St.  John's  Wood,  when  we  ought  to  have  been 
braking  his  coach?  So  we  must  please  our  fastidious  censors  by 
arranging  that  the  new  party  will  sit  up  of  nights  in  the  House, 
instead  of  sporting  about  town  as  His  Grace  suggests  the  old 
one  did.  Shall  be  over  on  Thursday. 

T.  M.  HEALY. 

Mr.   Healy   to   Mr.   Labouchere 

DUBLIN,  Jan.   17,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  L., — I  don't  think  I  could  say  anything  fresh  until 
Thursday,  when  I  shall  go  fully  into  matters  with  you.  I  quite 
feel  the  difficulties  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  position  and  think  our 
party  fully  appreciate  them,  and  would  even  strain  points  to 
obviate  them,  if  this  can  well  be  done  by  men  in  our  straits. 
However,  I  would  point  out  that  on  his  side  we  have  had  nothing 
but  a  repudiation  of  the  principles  attributed  to  him  by  the 
"Revelations,"  and  this,  plus  good  intentions,  is  not  sufficient 
ground  for  eighty-six  men  to  consult  and  decide  on.  If  no 
communication  is  made  to  Parnell,  as  I  think  it  ought  to  be,  for 
our  meeting,  we  shall  probably  let  things  drift  and  do  nothing. 
I  would  have  preferred  all  along  not  to  have  been  the  repository 
of  any  views  held  by  your  Leaders,  lest  it  might  be  supposed  I 
was  trenching  on  the  prerogatives  of  Parnell's  position,  and  now 
I  think  the  time  has  come — if  he  is  to  be  approached  at  all  for 
some  communication  to  reach  him  otherwise  than  through  me. 
If  I  can  be  shown  any  honourable  basis,  on  which  we  could  vote 
your  party  into  power,  I  shall  rejoice  and  will  press  my  views 
strongly  on  our  men. — Faithfully  yours, 

T.  M.  HEALY. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Jan.  22,  1886. 
MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  send  this  to  you  by  hand,  be- 


i886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         315 

cause  if  you  are  inclined  to  go  on  with  the  plan  you  suggested, 
it  will  be  necessary  to  act. 

Parnell  is  quite  ready — without  prejudice — that  is  to  say, 
he  says  that  he  does  not  absolutely  assent,  but  thinks  that  he  will, 
which  you  know,  with  him — who  is  more  hesitating  than  Fabius 
— means  that  he  will.  His  lieutenants  agree — although  he  does 
not  know  this. 

But  he  says  that,  admitting  that  Mr.  Gladstone  can  give  no 
pledges,  he  must  know  two  things : 

1 .  That  Mr.  Gladstone,  if  called  upon  by  the  Queen  to  form 
a  Government,  will  form  one,  i.  e.,  if  Goschen,  Hartington,  etc., 
decline  to  join,  that  he  will  not  throw  up  the  sponge,  for,  with 
considerable  point,  he  says  that  he  prefers  the  Conservatives  to 
a  Hartington  Government,  supported  by  the  Moderate  Liberals 
and  Conservatives,  and  you  as  a  Radical.     Such  a  Government 
he  might  not  be  able  to  turn  out,  and  it  might  remain  master 
of  the  situation. 

2.  He  wants  an  understanding  that  if  Mr.  Gladstone  comes 
in  he  will  act  on  his  speech,  and  at  once  bring  in  his  scheme  for 
the  Government  of  Ireland. 

I  saw  Herbert  Gladstone,  and  he  is  to  explain  these  two 
demands  to  his  father. 

Herbert  Gladstone  says  that  his  father  would  take  office 
without  Hartington,  but  that  his  main  difficulty  is  the  Peers. 
He  hopes  that  he  will  be  able  to  get  over  this  difficulty  very  soon. 

I  have  replied  that  at  any  moment  the  Irish  may  break  out, 
and  that  if  once  we  get  to  Procedure  we  shall  all  fall  to  pieces, 
and  that  the  determination  of  the  Irish  to  fight  against  Procedure 
will  very  soon  make  us  too. 

I  begged  J.  Ceilings  to  put  off  his  amendment,  and  told  him 
that  perhaps  I  might  get  him  some  votes.  Randolph  Churchill 
tried  to  bring  the  general  debate  to  an  end  last  night,  but  this 
we  stopped,  and  Sexton  moved  the  adjournment. 

Grosvenor  asked  me  how  long  the  debate  would  last?  I  said 
the  Irish  meant  to  keep  it  up.  He  said  that  he  did  not  want 
them  to.  I  said  that  they  were  not  asking  him  whether  he  did 
or  not,  but  that  he  was  asking  me  now  long  it  would  last.  He 
told  me  that  he  would  prevent  the  G.  O.  M.  ever  going  for  Home 
Rule,  and  then  spoke  about  the  Party.  He  said,  "  You  or  Truth 


316  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

are  making  a  great  mistake.  You  assume  that  the  Radicals 
constitute  the  majority  of  the  Liberal  Party,  but  really  the 
Whigs  do."  I  asked  him  what  would  happen  if  the  G.  O.  M. 
were  to  retire;  he  replied,  a  Whig  Administration  under  Harting- 
ton  with  you — that  you  and  the  Radicals  would  soon  perceive 
that  you  were  not  masters  of  the  situation,  etc. 

I,  of  course,  did  not  tell  him  about  Ceilings' s  amendment, 
but  it  will  be  very  difficult  to  get  him  to  whip  for  it,  and  you  will 
have  to  put  your  foot  down  about  it.  Parnell  agrees,  if  they  are 
to  be  bought  off,  that  the  Irish  shall  appear  not  to  take  much 
interest  in  the  matter,  but  to  vote  up  before  the  Whigs  know  what 
is  to  occur. 

Parnell  is  more  than  reasonable.  In  his  present  mood,  he  is 
all  for  a  fair  scheme.  His  two  sine  qua  nons  are,  that  there  should 
be  an  Assembly  called  a  Parliament  for  local  matters,  and  that 
he  should  have  the  Police.  He  says  that  it  would  be  absolutely 
impossible  for  him  to  keep  down  the  Fenians  without  this,  and 
that  he  is  fully  determined  not  to  accept  the  responsibility. 
About  the  veto,  etc.,  he  will  make  concessions,  and  give  any 
guarantees  that  are  required. 

He  made  a  most  conciliatory  speech  last  night.  Before  mak- 
ing it  he  said,  "There  shall  not  be  one  word  in  it  to  which  any 
one  can  object."  He  is  very  anxious  to  know  about  your  feeling 
on  the  matter  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  plans. 

With  regard  to  Ireland,  he  says  that  the  people  really  cannot 
pay  their  rents  in  some  places,  and  that  he  is  certain  that  if 
nothing  be  done  there  will  be  rows  in  a  few  weeks.  But  he  is 
doing  all  that  he  can  to  keep  things  quiet,  and  next  week  he  will 
dissolve  some  of  the  most  bumptious  of  the  Local  Branch  Leagues. 

I  told  Herbert  Gladstone  that  you  had  suggested  to  me  the 
Collings  amendment.1  Could  you  not  see  Mr.  Gladstone  and 
push  the  matter?  I  also  told  Herbert  Gladstone  that  Grosvenor 
was  not  to  be  trusted. 

I  shall,  I  suppose,  see  you  in  the  House  this  afternoon.  Never 
shall  we  have  a  better  chance,  but  if  we  do  not  use  our  chances, 
they  will  disappear. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

*It  was  upon  this  Amendment  that  Lord  Salisbury's  Government  was 
defeated. 


x886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         317 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

40  PRINCE'S  GARDENS,  S.  W.,  Feb.  15, 1886.' 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, —  ...  As  regards  out  future  policy 
I  can  say  nothing  at  present,  but  I  think  that  a  closer  inspection 
of  the  difficulties  in  the  way  has  brought  Mr.  Gladstone  nearer 
to  me  than  he  was  when  he  first  came  to  London.  If  Parnell  is 
impracticable  my  hope  is  that  we  may  all  agree  to  give  way  to 
the  Tories  and  let  them  do  the  coercion  which  will  then  be 
necessary.  They  will  be  supported  for  this  purpose  by  a  clear 
majority  in  the  country  and  probably  in  the  House.  As  for 
passing  Home  Rule  resolutions  at  the  present  time,  I  utterly 
disbelieve  in  its  possibility. — Yours  very  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Laboucherc  to  Mr.  Chamberlain  * 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  March  31, 1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — There  would  be  much  joy  in  the 
Radical  heaven  if  things  could  be  hit  off  with  you,  and  they 
would  all  be  ready  to  put  Elijah's  mantle  on  you  if  they  could 
come  to  some  agreement  as  to  this  damned  Irish  question. 

The  feeling  is,  I  think,  this:  they  are  in  favour  of  Home  Rule, 
and  do  not  particularly  care  about  details,  provided  that  the 
scheme  settles  the  matter.  They  do  not  love  the  Irish,  but  hate 
them,  and  would  give  them  Home  Rule  on  the  Gladstone  or 
Canada  pattern  to  get  rid  of  them.  Home  Rule,  therefore, 
whatever  the  Whigs  may  say,  will  be  carried.  They  are  dead 
against  any  employment  of  English  credit  for  the  Irish  landlords 
or  Irish  tenants.  This — whatever  the  detail  of  Mr.  Gladstone's 
plan  may  be — will  be  lost. 

I  rather  suspect  that  the  revered  G.  O.  M.  is  playing  a  game ; 
he  is  bound  to  Spencer,  therefore  he  is  to  bring  in  his  Land  Bill. 
But,  if  it  meets  with  disapproval,  is  it  likely  that  he  will  throw 

1  The  lull  in  Mr.  Labouchere's  correspondence  is  accounted  for  by  the  fact 
that  Lord  Salisbury's  Government,  finding  itself  in  a  minority  of  79  on  the 
early  morning  of  January  27,  resigned,  and,  on  February  26,  Mr.  Glad- 
stone became  Prime  Minister  for  the  third  time.  Mr.  Chamberlain  became 
President  of  the  Local  Government  Board. 

*  Mr.  Chamberlain  had  resigned  his  post  in  the  Cabinet  on  March  16. 


318  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

up  the  Home  Rule  sponge  for  the  sake  of  Spencer  and  the  Irish 
landlords?  Will  he  not  rather  say  that  it  is  a  detail  of  a  great 
project,  and  not  an  essential  one? 

Now,  just  see  what  would  be  the  position  if  we  could  act  with 
you  on  these  lines?  The  Whigs  would  be  cleared  out.  If 
Gladstone  is  beaten,  we  would  soon  upset  a  Hartington  cum 
Conservative  Government.  We  might  have  grandiose  revolu- 
tions— giving  cows  to  agriculturists,  and  free  breakfast  tables 
to  artisans.  We  should  be  against  Tories,  Whigs,  and  Lords. 
With  you  to  the  front  we  should  win  at  an  election,  or  if  not  at 
once,  later  on.  There  never  was  such  an  opportunity  to  establish 
a  Radical  party,  and  to  carry  all  before  it.  Is  it  worth  while 
wrecking  this  beautiful  future,  for  the  sake  of  some  minor  details 
about  Irish  Government?  You  may  depend  upon  it,  that  the 
Irish,  if  not  granted  Gladstone's  Home  Rule,  will  never  assent 
to  anything  else.  Coercion  would  follow,  and  this  would  give 
power  to  the  Tory  Whigs  for  years.  For  my  part,  I  would  coerce 
the  Irish,  grant  them  Home  Rule,  or  do  anything  with  them,  in 
order  to  make  the  Radical  programme  possible.  Ireland  is  but 
a  pawn  in  the  game.  If  they  make  fools  of  themselves  when 
left  to  themselves,  it  would  be  easy  to  treat  them  as  the  North 
did  the  South,  rule  by  the  sword,  and  suppress  all  representation. 
— Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

REFORM  CLUB,  April  7,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Any  number  of  Radicals  expressed 
their  hope  this  afternoon  in  the  House  that  you  would  see  your 
way  to  approve  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  amended  Bill.  They  are  all 
most  anxious  that  you  should  be  the  Elisha  of  the  aged  Elijah, 
and  aid  in  getting  this  Irish  question  out  of  the  way. 

I  believe  that  the  old  Parliamentary  Hand  means  to  throw 
out  that,  on  details,  discussion  can  take  place  in  Committee.  The 
line,  I  hear,  on  Excise  and  Customs  is:  Do  you  want  the  Irish 
Members?  if  not,  you  must  give  them  Excise  and  Customs;  if 
you  do,  this  is  not  necessary. 

I  was  asked  to  sound  Parnell  a  couple  of  days  ago  about 


i886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         319 

annexing  Belfast  and  the  adjacent  country  to  England.  I  did 
not  see  him,  but  I  learnt  that  he  is  strongly  against  it.  The  pro- 
ject is,  I  think,  now  abandoned,  for  the  Scotch  seem  likely  to 
go  straight  without  it,  and  the  Belfast  people  do  not  want  it. 

To  the  best  of  my  belief  the  real  number  that  Hartington  has 
got  is  sixty.  We  cannot  make  out  about  Ponsonby  calling  on 
Hartington,  unless  the  Queen  is  anticipating  events,  and  sounding 
him  about  what  she  must  do,  if  asked  to  dissolve.  Randolph 
tells  me  that  Lord  Salisbury  called  upon  him  to  settle  details 
about  the  debate.  I  doubt  whether  this  is  precisely  true. — 
Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

40  PRINCE'S  GARDENS,  S.  W.,  April  8,  I886.1 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — Nothing  would  give  me  greater 
pleasure  than  to  come  back  to  the  fold.  Unfortunately  I  am 
told  to-day  on  the  highest  authority  that  the  scheme  to  be  pro- 
posed to-night  will  not  meet  the  main  objections  which  led  to 
my  resignation.  I  am  very  sorry,  as  I  was  and  am  in  the  most 
conciliatory  mood. — Yours  very  truly, 

J.  L.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  April  15,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Some  friends  of  yours  are  urging 
that  there  should  be  an  interview  between  you  and  Mr.  Glad- 
stone. They  asked  me  what  I  thought?  I  said  that  it  was 
doubtful  whether  this  would  lead  to  much  beyond  vague  talk 
by  Mr.  Gladstone. 

You  objected  to  (i)  Members  being  excluded,  (2)  Magistrates 
not  being  appointed  by  England,  (3)  Excise  and  Customs.  No 
3  is  given  up.  No  I  is  an  open  question,  which  is  practically 
yielded.  There  remains,  therefore,  only  No.  2.  As  regards  the 
two  Orders,  I  presume  that  Mr.  Gladstone  alluded  to  them,  when 
he  said  that  he  did  not  himself  deem  guarantees  necessary. 

1  On  April  8  Mr.  Gladstone  moved  the  first  reading  of  the  Home  Rule  Bill. 


320  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

There  is  no  reason  therefore  why  we  should  not  throw  them  out 
in  Committee,  or  if  they  pass,  and  there  is  a  Radical  majority 
in  Parliament  later  on,  reconsider  the  matter.  So  the  Bill  has 
been  remodelled  on  your  pattern. 

As  regards  the  Land  Bill,1 1  hear  that  Lord  Spencer  says  that 
if  it  is  thrown  out  in  the  House  of  Commons,  he  will  not  complain. 
Mr.  Gladstone  therefore  avoids  trouble  by  bringing  it  in,  and  as 
the  Conservatives  cannot  well  vote  for  it,  I  am  sure  that  we  can 
throw  it  out  on  the  Second  Reading. 

Your  coming  over  would  ensure  the  passing  of  the  Irish 
Government  Bill;  it  would  go  to  the  Lords.  Then  Queen,  Lords, 
and  Whigs  would  be  on  one  side,  and  the  Radicals  on  the  other. 
Mr.  Gladstone  must  soon  come  to  an  end.  You  would  be  our 
leader.  The  Whigs  would  be  hopelessly  bogged.  Radicalism 
would  be  triumphant.  Does  not  this  tempt  you?  It  really 
does  seem  such  a  pity  with  the  promised  land  before  us,  that  we 
should  wander  off  into  the  wilderness,  on  account  of  small  differ- 
ences of  detail.  There  is  no  scheme  which  the  mind  of  man  could 
contrive  that  would  not  be  open  to  criticism.  A  better  one  than 
that  of  Mr.  Gladstone  is  conceivable,  but  show  me  how  any  body 
of  men  would  be  found  to  agree  upon  any  other  scheme?  There 
is  nothing  more  easy  than  Constitution  making,  except  criticising 
the  Constitutions  made  by  others,  and  there  always  are,  and 
always  will  be,  a  number  of  people  to  go  against  any  scheme. — 
Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

40  PRINCE'S  GARDENS,  S.  W.,  April  17,  1886. 
No.  I. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — I  really  made  a  great  effort  last 
night  to  come  to  an  arrangement,  and  whether  it  is  successful 
or  not  depends  now  on  Mr.  Gladstone's  inclination  to  meet  me 
half  way — rather  perhaps  I  should  say  it  depends  upon  the  action 
of  yourself  and  other  Radical  members  who  agree  with  my  views 
and  are  in  a  position  to  bring  sufficient  pressure  to  bear  upon  the 
Whigs  to  make  reconciliation  a  certainty. 

1  Land  Bill  introduced  and  the  First  Reading  on  April  16. 


i886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         321 

I  am  quite  convinced,  from  the  information  that  reaches  me, 
that  unless  some  such  reconciliation  is  effected  the  Liberal  party 
will  be  hopelessly  divided  at  the  general  election. 

The  majority  will  very  likely  go  with  the  party  machinery 
and  with  Mr.  Gladstone,  but  a  sufficient  number  will  stand  aloof 
to  make  success  impossible. 

We  cannot  leave  the  matter  uncertain  till  after  the  2nd  reading. 
I  know  enough  of  Parliamentary  tactics  to  be  sure  that  in  that 
case  we  shall  get  nothing,  but  be  beaten  in  detail  on  every  division. 
All  I  ask  is  that  Mr.  Gladstone  should  give  some  sufficient  assur- 
ance that  he  will  consent — first,  to  the  retention  of  the  Irish 
representation  at  Westminster  on  its  present  footing  according 
to  population,  and  at  the  same  time  the  maintenance  of  Imperial 
control  over  Imperial  taxation  in  Ireland;  and  secondly,  that  he 
should  be  willing  to  abandon  all  the  so-called  safeguards  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Constitution  of  the  new  legislative  body  in  Dublin. 

You  can  get  this  assurance  if  you  like,  and  the  matter  is 
therefore  in  your  hands. — Yours  very  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  April  17,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  made  it  quite  clear  and  distinct 
both  to  Herbert  Gladstone  and  to  Arnold  Morley  what  you 
wanted,  after  seeing  you.  Herbert  is  to  tackle  his  father  on  the 
subject.  I  have  no  doubt  that  we  can  arrange  the  matter. 
Arnold  Morley  would  hold  that,  anyhow,  you  would  vote  for  the 
Bill.  I  said  that  this  was  not  quite  so  certain,  and  that  your 
proposal  was  a  reasonable  one.  Herbert  Gladstone  said  that 
his  father  did  not  in  the  least  undervalue  your  support,  and 
considered  that  your  present  attitude  was  paralysing  the  party 
outside  Parliament.  Some  friends  of  yours  were  getting  up  a 
memorandum  to  Mr.  Gladstone  about  the  Bill,  asking  him  to 
promise  this  and  that.  Do  pray  stop  them.  If  once  we  get 
to  memorandums  we  shall  have  counter  ones  from  the  Whigs, 
and  they  put  Mr.  Gladstone  in  a  hole. 

Herbert  Gladstone  says  that  the  real  bona  fide  difficulty  of 
his  father  is,  that  he  cannot  devise  a  scheme.  Could  you  not  let 


322  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

me  have  one?     This  would  settle  this  nonsense.     How  would 
it  be  if  proxies  were  allowed  in  respect  to  the  Irish? — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

P.  S. — What  day  is  your  meeting  at  Birmingham? 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

40  PRINCE'S  GARDENS,  S.  W.,  April  17, 1886. 
No.  2. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — Since  writing  you  I  have  received 
your  card.  It  is  necessary  that  I  should  say  that  nothing  will 
induce  me  to  vote  for  the  second  reading,  unless  I  get  some  assur- 
ance of  Mr.  Gladstone's  willingness  to  maintain  the  Irish  repre- 
sentation. I  do  not  think  there  is  any  practical  difficulty  in  the 
way  greater  than,  or  as  great  as,  the  difficulties  already  attempted 
to  be  overcome  in  the  Bill.  I  am  told  that  Morley  stands  in  the 
way  of  a  reconciliation  as  he  considers  himself  pledged  by  his 
Chelmsford  speech  to  the  exclusion  of  the  Irish  members  from 
Westminster. 

As  regards  the  memorandum,  I  understand  that  it  is  only  to 
the  Whips  for  their  information,  and  not  for  Mr.  Gladstone.  I 
think  it  may  safely  be  allowed  to  go  on.  I  believe  a  number  of 
the  Whips  would  be  quite  willing  to  sign  it  and  to  accept  the 
compromise. 

My  meeting  at  Birmingham  is  on  Wednesday.  I  will  try  and 
maintain  a  conciliatory  attitude,  but  the  position  becomes 
increasingly  difficult.  I  am  bothered  out  of  my  life  to  attend 
Radical  meetings  in  different  parts  of  the  country.  I  have  already 
received  invitations  from  Manchester,  Rochdale,  Glasgow,  Edin- 
burgh, Woolwich,  and  other  places. 

I  need  not  say  that  I  do  not  want  to  start  on  a  campaign 
unless  it  is  absolutely  necessary. — Yours  very  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

POPE'S  VILLA,  TWICKENHAM,  April  19, 1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  write  you  a  line  to  catch  the 
post.  Herbert  Gladstone  told  me  that  he  had  talked  with  his 


i8861       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         323 

father  on  the  matter  last  Saturday.  The  difficulty  of  Mr. 
Gladstone  seems  to  be  this:  he  has  no  great  objection  himself  to 
the  Irish  Members  sitting  here.  But  he  does  not  like  to  consult 
his  Cabinet,  for  fear  of  resignations,  and  does  not  like  to  give  a 
pledge  without  consulting  them.  He  considers  that  he  has  already 
said  a  good  deal  in  his  speeches  to  show  how  open  his  mind  is. 

Now,  would  it  not  be  possible  for  us  all  to  vote  for  the  Second 
Reading,  and  to  announce  that  we  shall  go  for  the  Members 
sitting  in  Committee?  It  is  true  that  we  risk  being  beaten. 
But,  according  to  the  Whips — and  so  far  as  I  can  make  it  out 
they  are  correct — there  is  a  majority  for  the  Bill  on  the  Second 
Reading.  In  the  main  the  Members  will  vote  for  the  principle 
of  Home  Rule  on  the  Second  Reading,  however  opposed  they  may 
be  to  certain  details.  The  estimate  is  that  this  majority  will 
be  from  fifteen  to  twenty.  As  a  rule,  however,  doubtfuls  gravi- 
tate into  the  party  fold,  so  it  possibly  will  be  more.  It  cannot, 
however,  be  sufficiently  large  to  make  the  Government  independ- 
ent of  us  in  Committee.  We  shall  be  the  masters  of  the  situation, 
and  Mr.  Gladstone  will  completely  bleed  to  death  instead  of 
being  murdered  by  us,  for  the  odds  are  that  the  Bill  will  never 
come  out  of  Committee. 

I  venture,  therefore,  to  think  that,  seeing  the  difficulties  of 
Mr.  Gladstone  giving  any  specific  pledge,  seeing  the  tone  of 
Members,  and  seeing  the  objections  to  going  against  the  vast 
majority  of  Radicals  and  with  the  Whigs,  it  would  be  well  to 
rest  satisfied,  if  Mr.  Gladstone  will  distinctly  agree  to  leave  the 
matter  an  open  question.  I  think  that  we  can  get  a  majority 
of  Radicals  both  on  the  "  Member"  question  and  on  the  "  Order" 
question.  The  course  I  propose  seems  to  be  the  best  practically. 

We  have  a  meeting  at  the  St.  James's  Hall,  on  Thursday,  at 
which  I  am  to  take  the  Chair.  The  Resolution  is  conceived  in 
the  above  spirit,  and  I  have  already  had  rows  with  some  of  the 
Members  who  are  to  attend,  because  they  say  it  looks  like  knock- 
ing under  to  Chamberlain.  It  assents  to  Second  Reading,  but 
trusts  that  the  measure  will  be  modified  in  a  democratic  sense  in 
Committee.  This  we  shall  carry. 

I  do  not  myself  believe  in  Morley's  resignation,  nor  indeed  in 
Harcourt's.  It  is  possible,  however,  that  the  Lord  Chancellor 
will  be  firm,  though  I  understand  that  he  likes  his  salary. 


324  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

Supposing  that  you  voted  against  the  Second  Reading  with 
ten  followers.  This  would  be  a  tactical  fiasco.  If,  however, 
you  carried  all  the  Radicals  with  you — or  almost  all — in  Com- 
mittee, this  would  be  a  tactical  success,  whilst  the  Radicals 
would  be  delighted  with  your  acting  with  them  on  the  first,  and 
would  act  with  you  on  the  second.  Had  we  begun  sooner,  I 
think  that  we  could  have  got  up  a  pronouncement  against  the 
Bill,  if  the  point  were  not  yielded.  But  most  of  the  Radicals 
have  now  compromised  themselves. 

I  talked  to  Hartington  and  some  of  the  Whigs  this  evening. 
They  seemed  to  me  rather  down-hearted.  I  suspect  that  they 
are  not  getting  the  support  that  they  anticipated.  This  is 
always  the  case  with  a  big  cave. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

POPE'S  VILLA,  TWICKENHAM,  April  19,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Your  letters  will  go  to  Mr.  Glad- 
stone this  evening.  If  he  is  wise  he  will  make  terms  about  the 
Members  sitting.  I  hear  that  he  was  very  much  put  out  about 
your  speech,  and  no  one  dared  to  speak  to  him  before  he  left  for 
Hawarden. 

John  Morley  is  going  to  speak  on  Wednesday.  He  will  be 
conciliatory,  and  say,  "If  a  plan  can  be  devised,  etc." 

Mr.  Gladstone  should  ask  you  for  your  plan,  as  he  says  that 
he  cannot  make  one. 

I  don't  well  see  how  he  can  promise  to  go  against  the  guaran- 
tees. He  has  already  said  that  they  are  inserted  for  weaker 
brethren.  They  will,  if  retained,  and  if  we  vote  against  them, 
keep  the  Irish  on  our  side. 

Don't  forget  that  if  you  do  not  get  what  you  want,  there  is 
still  the  Third  Reading. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

POPE'S  VILLA,  TWICKENHAM,  April  20, 1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — You  will  see  our  resolution  in  the 
Daily  News  of  to-day.  Do  you  see  your  way  to  write  me  a  little 


i886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         325 

letter,  in  reply  to  a  supposed  one  from  me  asking  you  what  you 
think  of  the  resolution  and  expressing  a  hope  that  the  Radical 
party  will  be  united,  etc.  It  would  not  do  if  you  were  to  say 
that  you  should  vote  against  the  Second  Reading,  but  could 
you  not  blink  this — say  something  about  the  principle  of  the  Bill 
being  the  principle  of  justice,  and  that  in  Committee  the  Radicals 
must  unite  to  insist  upon  the  admission  of  Members  and  the 
abrogation  of  the  orders.  If  you  could  not  absolutely  do  this,  you 
might  leave  it  vague,  allowing  some  to  think  that  you  will  vote 
for  the  Second  Reading  and  others  to  think  that  you  will  not. 

I  am  writing  to  Dilke  to  ask  him  if  he  can  see  his  way  to 
write  a  similar  letter. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

HIGHBURY,    MOOR    GREEN, 

BIRMINGHAM,  April  21,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — The  Resolution  which  you  send  me, 
and  which  is  to  be  proposed  at  your  meeting  to-morrow  night, 
seems  well  designed  to  unite  the  Radical  party.  We  are  all 
fortunately  agreed  that  the  principle  of  Home  Rule  in  some  shape 
or  another  must  be  accepted,  and  we  only  differ,  if  at  all,  as  to 
the  methods  by  which  it  is  to  be  carried  into  effect.  For  myself, 
I  firmly  believe  that  Home  Rule  may  be  conceded  in  such  a  form 
as  to  join  the  three  Kingdoms  more  closely  together.  On  the 
other  hand,  I  fear  that  the  effect  of  the  Bill  in  its  present  shape 
would  be  to  bring  about  absolute  separation  at  no  distant  date. 
I  hope  the  Government  may  see  its  way  to  accept  the  modifica- 
tions which  Radicals  advocate,  and  if  any  assurance  to  this 
effect  is  given  I  shall  gladly  support  the  Second  Reading  in  the 
hope  that  minor  improvements  may  be  effected  in  it. — I  am, 
yours  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

HIGHBURY,  MOOR  GREEN, 
BIRMINGHAM,  April  22,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — My  speech  last  night  will  show  you 


326  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

where  I  am.  I  cannot  say  that  I  am  surprised  at  the  desire  of 
the  friends  of  the  Government  that  objectors  should  accept  the 
Second  Reading  and  reserve  their  opposition  for  the  Committee 
stage;  but  the  advice  is  too  transparent  and  cannot  possibly  be 
accepted. 

I  do  not  believe  there  is  really  the  least  difficulty  in  allowing 
the  Irish  Members  to  come  to  Westminster  and  there  to  vote 
only  on  questions  which  are  not  referred  to  them  at  Dublin. 
John  Morley's  difficulties  are  childish  and  perfectly  insignificant 
as  compared  with  the  difficulties  which  Mr.  Gladstone  has  already 
surmounted  in  the  preparation  of  his  Bill. 

Bradford  election  shows  what  will  be  the  end  of  it  all.  In 
spite  of  the  large  Irish  vote  now  transferred  to  the  Liberal  can- 
didate the  majority  of  1500  has  dwindled  to  half  that  number! 
I  am  being  bullied  to  attend  Radical  meetings  in  all  parts  of  the 
country,  but  at  present  I  have  replied  that  I  am  not  willing  to 
undertake  anything  in  the  nature  of  a  campaign  against  Glad- 
stone. At  the  same  time  I  am  pressing  all  my  correspondents 
to  try  to  bring  about  an  arrangement  by  mutual  concession.  I 
confess  I  am  not  very  sanguine  of  success. — Believe  me,  yours 
truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

HIGHBURY,  MOOR  GREEN, 
BIRMINGHAM,  April  24,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — I  cannot  authorise  the  change  you 
suggest  in  my  letter,  which  I  only  wrote  as  you  asked  me  for  it, 
without  much  idea  that  it  would  be  useful. 

I  think  the  chance  of  any  reunion  is  very  slight.  I  certainly 
could  not  agree  to  vote  for  the  second  reading  without  preliminary 
assurances  as  to  retention  of  the  Irish  representation. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  the  result  of  my  action  will  involve 
temporary  unpopularity  with  the  Radical  party,  but  they  will 
probably  want  my  help  again  at  some  future  time,  and  will  then 
exhibit  as  short  a  memory  and  as  little  consistency  as  they  are 
doing  now  on  the  question  of  Irish  Government. 


i886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         327 

In  the  meantime  the  honour  of  leading  a  party  so  uncertain 
appears  to  me  less  clear  than  it  did  some  months  ago. — Believe 
me,  yours  very  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Sir  Charles  Dilke 

POPE'S  VILLA,  TWICKENHAM,  April  24,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  DILKE, — Chamberlain  sent  me  a  letter  for  the  St. 
James's  Hall  meeting,  but  it  came  too  late.  It  would  not,  how- 
ever, have  helped  matters,  for  he  sticks  to  the  phrase  "the  Gov- 
ernment accepts."  I  had  a  letter  from  him  this  morning,  much  in 
the  same  tone,  also  one  from  Morley,  who  says  that  Chamber- 
lain's speech  is  an  attempt  to  coerce  the  Government,  and  that 
they  won't  stand  coercion. 

I  have  been  trying  to  get  Chamberlain  to  agree  to  vote  for 
the  Second  Reading,  on  condition  that  the  Government  makes 
the  admission  of  Irish  in  Parliament  a  bona  fide  open  question,  on 
which  the  House  may  vote  without  official  leading  and  without 
the  Whips  telling.  If  he  would  do  so,  this  would  reconcile  these 
two  babies.  I  really  don't  see  how  Gladstone  can  accept  modi- 
fications, before  Committee,  urged  in  this  sic  volo  sic  jubes  style. 
Could  you  suggest  from  Chamberlain  (as  from  yourself)  that  he 
might  be  satisfied  with  the  open  question.  He  says  that  he 
would  be  beaten  in  Committee.  But  I  don't  see  this — and  even 
if  it  were  so,  he  would  have  many  opportunities  hereafter  to 
get  back  his  friends,  the  Irish,  if  he  really  wants  them.  The 
great  point  is  to  find  some  modus  vivendi  which  would  keep  the 
Radicals  together,  and  to  this  he  ought  to  subordinate  much, 
instead  of  making  difficulties.  The  Radicals  do  not  take  his 
point  about  the  objections  to  fight  in  Committee,  and  there  will 
be  a  row  about  his  bullying  the  G.  O.  M.  On  so  big  an  issue,  his 
position  is  untenable — the  Whig  one  is  more  reasonable.  If  only 
once  a  negotiation  could  be  started  upon  the  open  question  basis, 
Mr.  Gladstone  would  manage  to  dodge  him  into  voting  for  the 
Second  Reading,  and  this  is  all  that  is  wanted  in  Chamberlain's 
own  interest. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 


328  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

Sir  Charles  Dilke  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

PYRFORD,  WOKING  (undated). 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — It  looks  as  though  the  §econd  Read- 
ing will  be  rejected,  and,  if  Mr.  Gladstone  appeals  to  the  constit- 
uencies, it  will,  I  fancy,  be  a  rout.  But  I  quite  agree  as  to  the 
great  importance  of  patching  up  the  fued  between  Chamberlain 
and  Mr.  Gladstone,  for  the  sake  of  everybody  and  everything, 
and  I  shall  continue  to  do  all  I  can  in  that  sense.  I  had  a  letter 
from  Chamberlain  as  to  Ireland  on  Saturday  to  which  I  replied. 
I  think  my  reply  will  bring  another,  and  on  that  I  can  try  again 
in  your  sense. — Yours, 

CHAS.  W.  DILKE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

POPE'S  VILLA,  TWICKENHAM,  April  24,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Naturally  the  Radical  Associa- 
tions want  to  hear  you,  for  even  so  humble  an  individual  as  I 
am  gets  a  dozen  letters  every  morning  asking  me  to  go  to  meet- 
ings at  all  sorts  of  places. 

I  think  that  the  feeling  in  the  country  is  this : 

They  regard  the  principle  of  the  Bill  to  be  a  Domestic  Legisla- 
tion for  Ireland.  The  Radicals  are  in  the  main  opposed  to 
"orders"  and  to  exclusion  of  Irish.  They  do  not  like  the  idea 
of  Radicals  voting  with  the  Whigs  and  Tories  against  the  prin- 
ciple, and  the  view  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  successful 
opposition  to  take  place  in  Committee  against  the  "orders"  and 
the  "admission"  is  too  complicated  for  their  understandings. 
In  fact  they  don't  want  a  Party  division  to  be  spoilt,  and  wish 
to  humble  the  Tories  and  the  Whigs. 

Morley  writes  to  me  to-day  to  say  that  your  speech  means 
coercion.  I  have  replied  that  in  all  things  there  must  be  a  give 
and  take. 

I  am  sure  that  if  you  can  get  an  assurance  that  the  question 
of  the  admission  is  to  be  a  bona  fide  open  one,  that  we  should  win 
on  it — assuming  that  the  Conservatives  go  for  it.  Such  an 
arrangement  avoids  the  necessity  of  either  side  marching  under 
the  harrow. 


1886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         329 

Once  the  question  left  open,  in  the  interval  between  the 
Second  Reading  and  Committee,  we  could  get  up  a  strong 
agitation  for  the  "admission,"  whilst  no  one  would  be  opposing 
us,  and  you  would  have  all  the  credit  of  the  alteration. — Yours 
truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

HIGHBURY,     MOOR    GREEN, 
BIRMINGHAM,  April  30,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — I  think  that  you  must  now  see 
that  the  Irish  Bills  in  their  present  form  are  doomed. 

I  have  a  list  of  i  n  Liberals  pledged  against  Second  Reading. 
Of  these  I  know  of  59  who  have  publicly  communicated  their 
intentions  to  their  constituents.  I  believe  most  of  the  rest  are 
safe,  but,  making  all  allowances  for  desertions,  there  is  not  much 
chance  of  forcing  the  Second  Reading  through. 

I  know  of  many  men  who  are  pledged  like  yourself  to  vote 
for  amendments  in  Committee,  and  some  who  are  pledged  to 
vote  against  Second  Reading  if  the  amendments  are  not  carried. 

The  Land  Bill  has  no  friends  at  all. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  what  my  own  following  as  distinguished 
from  Hartington's  is,  but  I  reckon  that  something  like  fifty 
would  vote  for  Second  Reading,  if  my  amendments  were  con- 
ceded. 

It  is  time  that  a  final  decision  was  taken.  The  fight  is  grow- 
ing hotter  every  day  and  the  division  of  the  party  will  be  irre- 
trievable if  the  controversy  is  pushed  much  further.  I  am  not 
surprised  at  the  action  of  the  Caucuses.  I  know  them  pretty 
well,  and  they  consist  of  the  most  active  and  thoroughgoing 
partisans.  But  it  is  the  men  who  stay  away  who  turn  elections, 
and  there  will  be  a  larger  abstention  on  this  Irish  question  than 
we  have  ever  had  before  in  the  history  of  the  Liberal  party. 

I  believe  the  issue  is  in  the  hands  of  Radicals  like  yourself. 
If  you  exert  the  necessary  pressure  the  Bills  may  be  recast. 
Much  has  been  done  by  their  introduction.  The  Party  as  a 
whole  has  accepted  their  principle  of  Home  Rule,  and  we  might 
come  to  an  agreement  about  the  details.  But  this  will  be  out 


330  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

of  the  question  if  we  go  into  opposite  lobbies  on  the  Second 
Reading. 

There  is  no  necessity  to  withdraw  the  Bill  at  once  If  the 
Government  will  give  the  necessary  assurance  of  amendments 
to  retain  Irish  Representation  and  Imperial  control  of  taxation, 
we  might  carry  Second  Reading  and  then  the  Bills  could  be 
committed  pro  forma  for  the  necessary  changes,  or  withdrawn 
for  the  session. 

All  our  people  would  be  delighted  at  the  postponement  of  the 
dissolution,  and  in  the  interval  we  might  kiss  and  be  friends. 
I  do  not  suppose  the  Chief  will  listen  to  this,  but  I  have  thought 
it  right  to  make  one  more  effort  before  the  battle  is  finally  engaged 
— Yours  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  May  i,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  have  been  doing  my  best  to  get 
some  sort  of  modus  vivendi  in  which  the  honours  of  war  would  be 
divided. 

I  had  a  letter  from  Morley  yesterday  in  which  he  promised 
to  be  most  conciliatory  at  Glasgow.  He  said : 

"I  don't  think  there  is  a  pin  of  difference  between  you 
and  me  as  to  the  desirableness  of  passing  the  Second 
Reading  at  almost  any  cost.  But  Chamberlain  wants 
us  to  go  down  on  our  knees,  and  this  cannot  be  done  for 
the  money." 

He  had  previously  suggested  to  me  what  he  said,  I  see,  at 
Glasgow  about  the  Irish  Members  coming  back  in  three  years. 
I  replied  that  this  might  possibly  form  a  basis,  but  that  it  must 
in  this  case  be  understood  that  they  came  back  without  any 
further  legislature  on  the  subject.  To  this  he  demurred,  but  I 
think  that  he  would  not  make  difficulties. 

I  do  not  dispute  your  figures,  but  I  would  point  out  to  you 
that  some  of  your  fifty  can  be  manipulated.  As  a  rule  a  big  cave 
does  not  hold  together.  Some  of  its  Members  in  the  end  take 
refuge  in  voting  for  a  Party  Bill,  and  give  as  a  pretext  some 


i886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         331 

phrase  used  by  the  Minister  for  having  done  so,  and  in  the 
G.  O.  M.  you  have  a  past  master  in  these  sort  of  catching  phrases. 

I  was  brought  up  in  diplomacy.  When  two  countries  send 
each  other  their  ultimatums,  a  third  country  desirous  of  peace 
proposes  something  between  the  two,  and  peace  is  made  upon 
its  adoption  by  the  belligerents. 

I  have  been  suggesting  that  Mr.  Gladstone  should  agree  to 
leave  the  ques  ion  an  open  one,  the  word  "open"  being  under- 
stood to  signify  that  the  Whips  do  not  tell,  and  that  every  one — 
Ministers  included — should  be  allowed  to  vote  as  they  please. 
I  don't  well  see  how  the  G.  O.  M.  could  go  further.  Although 
we  may  call  it  a  detail,  the  exclusion  of  Irish  Members  is  really 
a  fundamental  principle  in  the  Bill,  and  were  he  absolutely  to 
agree  to  change  it,  this  would  be,  as  Morley  says,  going  down  on 
his  knees  to  you  who,  whether  right  or  wrong,  are  the  head  centre 
of  the  Radical  minority,  and  not  of  the  majority.  Would  you, 
yourself,  eat  humble  pie  to  this  extent  ?  Moreover,  I  think 
that,  if  he  had  to  submit  this  proposal  to  his  Cabinet,  there  would 
be  suspicions,  and  the  Cabinet  just  now  can  hardly  stand  another 
split. 

I  have  never  gathered  that  Mr.  Gladstone  himself  is  opposed 
to  the  retention  of  the  Irish.  All  that  he  says  is,  "The  problem 
is  a  difficult  one:  show  me  a  good  plan  and  I  have  no  objection 
to  adopt  it." 

There  is  another  way  of  meeting  you,  but  I  don't  know 
whether  Mr.  Gladstone  would  accept  it.  It  is  this.  Leave 
matters  as  they  now  are  with  respect  to  the  Irish  Members,  by 
eliminating  all  clauses  excluding  them.  Their  position  would 
thus  be  left  to  future  legislation  on  the  subject.  They  would 
in  this  case  sit  as  they  are,  and  vote  upon  Imperial  and 
English  local  issues  until  the  entire  question  is  treated  in  a 
separate  Bill. 

A  third  plan  might  be  that  of  John  Morley's,  to  exclude  them 
for  three  years,  and  for  them  at  the  end  to  come  back  as  they 
are  now,  unless  any  alteration  during  the  interval  be  legislatively 
made  in  their  position. 

Parnell  is  very  much  opposed  to  the  retention.  He  puts  his 
opposition  upon  the  difficulty  of  getting  Irishmen  to  come  over. 
He  asks  whether  there  are  to  be  two  separate  elections,  or  only 


332  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

one.  In  the  first  case,  he  complains  of  the  expense  and  of  the 
difficulty  of  finding  men,  in  the  second  he  asks  how  men  can  sit 
and  vote  in  both  Parliaments  when  they  are  both  sitting  at  the 
same  time. 

Do  pray  be  conciliatory  in  the  matter,  and  be  satisfied  with 
the  substance.  If  the  "open  question"  were  granted,  I  am  sure 
that  you  would  have  a  majority  of  Radicals,  who  agree  with  you 
in  the  main,  but  think  that  they  ought  to  regard  the  Second 
Reading  at  the  conservation  of  the  principle  of  a  domestic  Legis- 
lature for  Ireland.  After  all,  a  General  Election  with  a  Radical 
split  would  either  give  Mr.  Gladstone  a  majority  against  you, 
or  would  end  in  a  Conservative  victory,  neither  of  which  would 
be  a  gain  to  you. 

I  take  Brand's  constituents  of  Stroud,  and  the  constituency 
of  Ipswich  as  specimens  of  public  feeling,  for  I  have  been  at  both 
of  them  this  week. 

At  Stroud  we  had  a  meeting.  The  Whigs  did  not  attend. 
Winterbotham  took  the  chair.  He  announced  that  he  should 
vote  against  the  Bill.  There  were  groans  and  "three  cheers 
for  Gladstone."  I  went  for  the  Bill,  but  explained  that  it 
was  desirable  that  the  Irish  Members  should  be  retained, 
and  that  this  was  your  view.  There  were  shouts  of  "let  him 
vote  with  Gladstone  on  the  Second  Reading."  At  the  end 
some  overzealous  ass  proposed  "three  cheers  for  Brand." 
This  was  met  with  a  chorus  of  howls  and  groans.  I  enquired 
later  on  what  was  the  real  position,  and  was  told  that  all 
the  Radicals  were  against  Brand,  but  that  there  would  be 
no  use  calling  upon  him  to  resign,  as  about  five  hundred  Whigs 
would  stick  to  him,  and  these  with  the  Conservatives  would 
secure  his  return. 

At  Ipswich  the  meeting  was  entirely  for  the  Second  Read- 
ing. I  praised  up  Collins,  etc.  They  cheered  his  name,  but 
whilst  dead  against  the  Land  Bill,  went  for  the  other  Bill,  and 
did  not  seem  to  care  much  for  details.  Two  of  the  County 
Members  spoke.  They  had  been  returned — mainly  through 
Collins' s  exertions — but  they  told  me  that  the  agricultural  labour- 
ers wanted  the  question  settled,  and  did  not  care  much  how  it 
was  settled. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 


i886]     THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         333 

P.  S. — You  have  never  let  me  have  your  "plan"  in  reply  to 
the  observation,  that  the  idea  is  good  in  theory,  but  that  the 
practical  difficulties  are  insuperable. 

Telegram,  Mr.  Gladstone  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

HA  WARDEN,  May  i,  1886. 

Herbert  Gladstone  expected  from  Scotland  to-night  letter 
from  me  to  Midlothian  will  shortly  appear. f 

GLADSTONE. 
LABOUCHERE, 
10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  S.  W. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

POPE'S  VILLA,  TWICKENHAM,  May  i,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  have  just  got  this  telegram.  If 
Mr.  Gladstone  has  not  told  you  that  he  is  going  to  write  his 
letter,  don't  please  let  it  out.  I  sent  him  yesterday  your 
figures  as  to  the  division,  and  preached  as  strongly  as  I  could 
conciliation,  telling  him  that  some  sort  of  give-and-take 
modus  vivendi  should  be  arrived  at,  otherwise  the  Bill  might  be 
lost. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  May  3, 1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Mr.  Gladstone  has  your  ultima- 
tumest  of  ultimatums.  My  impression  is  that  he  will  assent. 
I  had  a  talk  with  Morley  this  morning,  and  knocked  it  well  into 
his  head  that  the  question,  as  you  say,  is  to  be  or  not  to  be  as 
regards  the  Bill. 

1  On  May  3,  a  manifesto  was  issued  from  Mr.  Gladstone  in  which  he  in- 
timated that  the  Land  Bill  was  no  longer  to  be  an  essential  article  of  the 
Liberal  faith,  and  that,  in  the  Home  Rule  Bill,  all  questions  of  detail  were 
subsidiary.  The  only  important  thing  was  to  support  the  principle  of  estab- 
lishing a  Legislative  Body  in  Dublin  empowered  to  make  laws  for  Irish  a* 
distinguished  from  Imperial  affairs. 


334  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

The  decision  will  depend  very  much  upon  the  figures. 
Of  course  they  don't  take  yours  au  pied  de  la  lettre,  but  they 
evidently  are  thoroughly  uncomfortable  about  them.  They 
admit  that  the  feeling  throughout  the  country  is  in  favour 
of  the  Irish  remaining.  Harcourt  blustered  fearfully  in  the 
Cabinet  about  his  intentions.  Perhaps  it  might  be  well  if 
you  were  to  write  him  a  letter.  If  we  can  bring  about  an 
arrangement,  it  will  be  a  great  thing  for  the  party — put  aside 
the  Bill. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

HOUSE  OF  COMMONS,  May  3,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  am  pretty  sure  now  that  your 
terms  will  be  accepted. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

HOUSE  OF  COMMONS,  May  3, 1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Since  writing  to  you  Arnold 
Morley  asked  me  to  come  into  his  room.  He  said  that  he  had 
been  shown  your  letter,  and  wished  to  ask  me  whether  I  thought 
that  the  terms  were  the  lowest  that  you  would  take.  I  said 
"Yes,"  that  I  thought  they  were.  Was  I  quite  certain  that  you 
would  not  vote  for  the  bill  if  there  were  no  concession?  Quite 
certain.  Was  it  to  be  understood  that  you  would  vote  for  it  if 
Mr.  Gladstone  said  that  the  Government  would  support  or  bring 
in  a  clause  granting  representation  to  Ireland,  leaving  it  for 
Committee  to  say  how  many  constituted  representation?  I 
said,  that  I  understood  this,  but  that  he  had  better  consult  your 
letter. 

I  see  that  there  would  be  a  row  at  once  if  Mr.  Gladstone  were 
to  go  into  details,  so  I  should  think  that  it  would  be  better  to 
leave  them  alone.  I  told  him  that  moreover  Members  (one 
had)  had  told  me  that  they  would  only  vote  for  the  Bill  if  you 
were  satisfied,  and  that  he  must  perceive  that  the  Radicals  were 
in  favour  of  the  Irish  remaining  here.  He  admitted  this,  and 


1886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         335 

promised  to  explain  this  to  Mr.  Gladstone;  he  had,  he  said, 
in  fact  represented  this  to  him  ten  days  ago,  only  then  your 
terms  were  not  so  limited  as  now. 

Perhaps  it  might  be  well  if  you  would  write  me  a  line  (not 
in  answer  to  this,  or  as  though  I  had  written  to  you)  urging  a 
speedy  settlement — for  Mr.  Gladstone  is  apt  to  wait  for  something 
to  turn  up  to  his  advantage. 

His  letter  to  his  electors  is  good  clap-trap. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

BIRMINGHAM,  May  4, 1886. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — My  list  alters  every  day  as  I  re- 
ceive further  reports  from  my  correspondents.  I  have  only  had 
notice  of  two  deserters,  and  the  total  figures  now  stand  as  follows : 

Promised  against,  133 

Absolutely  pledged,  84 

I  have  not  heard  anything  from  Mr.  Gladstone,  but  have 
written  to  Harcourt  as  you  suggest.  I  am  unable  to  make  more 
of  Mr.  Gladstone's  manifesto  than  of  many  other  of  his  public 
utterances,  but  I  note  one  point  with  satisfaction.  He  says  in 
effect  that  the  retention  of  Irish  members  is  a  mere  detail:  to 
me  it  is  vital,  but  if  it  is  only  a  detail  to  him  surely  there  is  no 
excuse  for  his  not  publicly  giving  way. — Believe  me,  yours  very 
truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

HIGHBURY,  MOOR  GREEN, 
BIRMINGHAM,  May  4,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — I  have  a  number  of  enquiries  as 
to  what  I  am  going  to  do.  I  thought  I  had  made  it  all  clear  in 
my  speeches,  but  I  reply  to  every  one  that  I  shall  certainly  vote 
against  Second  Reading  unless  I  can  get  satisfactory  assurances 
beforehand;  and  that  I  will  not  vote  for  Second  Reading  unless 
I  know  that  the  Government  will  keep  the  Irish  Representation 


336  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

on  its  present  footing.  That  means,  of  course,  either  103  mem- 
bers or  a  reduction  according  to  population.  Any  other  repre- 
sentation would  be  illogical  and  absurd.  The  interest  of  Ireland 
in  Imperial  questions  is  in  proportion  to  population  and  not  to 
her  share  of  total  taxation.  It  might  be  in  proportion  to  her 
share  of  the  taxation  for  Imperial  objects.  Surely  the  best  plan 
would  be  to  accept  your  suggestion  and  for  the  Government  to 
agree  to  drop  the  clauses  about  Representation  at  Westminster, 
leaving  it  an  open  question  for  Committee  whether  there  should 
be  any  reduction,  or  any  restriction  on  their  liberty  of  speaking 
and  voting  on  non-Imperial  subjects. 

But  will  not  Mr.  Gladstone  be  content  to  secure  the  affirma- 
tion of  the  principle  by  Second  Reading,  vote,  and  then  commit 
the  Bill  pro  forma  for  amendments  or  withdraw  it  for  the  session? 

If  anything  is  to  be  done  it  should  be  at  once,  otherwise  I 
doubt  if,  even  with  my  assistance,  the  Second  Reading  can  be 
carried.  The  opposition  is  more  numerous  than  I  supposed, 
and  is  growing. — Yours  very  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

In  a  previous  letter  I  have  sent  you  my  latest  figures. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

HOUSE  OF  COMMONS,  May  6, 1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Morley  would  have  agreed  to 
leave  out  the  clause.  Mr.  Gladstone  would  not.  He  has 
elaborated  some  alternative  scheme,  which  is  to  come  before 
the  Cabinet  to-morrow. 

From  your  personal  standpoint  I  should  say  "take  it."  It 
will  be  a  substantial  concession,  and  will  be  made  to  you.  If  you 
do  not,  very  possibly  several  of  your  followers  will  accept  it. 

I  really  don't  believe  that  you  will  get  more.  It  will  fully 
recognise  the  paramount  character  of  the  Imperial  Parliament, 
enable  Irish  to  vote  on  taxation,  Imperial  matters,  etc.,  and  I 
doubt  whether  the  feeling  is  in  favour  of  their  voting  on  English 
issues. 

Anyhow,  you  get  your  principle  recognised.  The  Bill,  if  it 
passes  here,  will  be  thrown  out  in  the  Lords.  We  shall  go  to 


i886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY          337 

the  country,  not  on  details  of  any  Bill,  but  on  a  domestic  legisla- 
ture for  Ireland,  and  many  things  may  happen  before  next  year. 
— Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

P.  S. — Don't  say  anything  about  this  yet,  for  it  is  not  definite, 
and  won't  be  until  to-morrow's  Cabinet. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

HOUSE  OF  COMMONS,  May  7,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — The  Cabinet  yesterday  was  not  a 
formal  one;  there  is  to  be  one  to-morrow.  Some,  I  understand, 
are  in  favour  of  cutting  out  the  clause  respecting  the  exclusion 
of  the  Irish,  and  leaving  the  matter  to  future  legislation — others 
suggest  alternative  schemes.  Of  this  I  am  certain,  it  may  be 
that  terms  will  not  be  agreed  to  before  the  discussion  on  the 
Second  Reading,  but,  provided  that  the  Bill  cannot  be  carried 
without  you  and  your  friends,  the  point  will  be  yielded.  I 
regard  therefore  the  matter  as  done,  so  don't  pray  act  as  though 
it  were  not.  Any  one  takes  a  certain  time  to  make  grimaces 
before  he  consumes  his  humble  pie,  and  does  not  gulp  it  down,  so 
long  as  he  has  any  hope  of  being  able  to  avoid  doing  so. — 
Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 
i 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  May  8, 1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  have  just  been  reporting  progress 
at  Downing  Street.  Wolverton,  who  was  there,  quite  agreed 
that  if  you  want  ninety  Irish,  you  ought  to  have  them;  and,  in 
fact,  the  simplest  thing  is  to  leave  the  lot  as  they  are. 

It  was  admitted  that  the  Bill  would  require  modifications, 
if  the  Irish  are  to  sit.  Objection  was  taken  to  our  collecting  all 
revenues  on  the  score  that  the  presence  of  the  hated  Saxon 
throughout  the  country  would  put  the  backs  of  the  Irish  up. 

You  will  perhaps  remember  that  Parnell  entirely  objects  to 
the  amount  of  the  quota,  and  so,  by  showing  him  that  he  will 
lose  by  the  whisky  system,  we  might  get  him  to  unite  in  insisting 
upon  an  alteration. 


338  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

The  idea  of  Herschell — which  I  put  forward  as  mine,  and  said 
that  you  did  not  seem  to  object — took.  If  they  can  hit  it  off  in 
the  Cabinet  by  four  o'clock,  they  are  to  let  me  know,  and  I  will 
send  you  a  telegram. 

Things  being  as  they  are,  I  go  to  Hastings,  with  Therese 
Raquin  to  read  in  the  train,  with  the  hope  that  we  are  again 
a  happy  family. 

Don't  with  Herschell  make  it  too  clear  that  the  food  on  which 
our  friends  are  browsing  is  humble  pie.  The  substance  is  every- 
thing, and  no  sooner  will  it  be  known  that  you  mean  to  vote  for 
the  Second  Reading,  and  that  Mr.  Gladstone  knocks  the  bottom 
out  of  his  tub  as  regards  the  exclusion  of  the  Irish,  than  the  Tories 
and  the  Whigs  will  point  the  moral. 

I  read  out  the  words  which  Mr.  Gladstone  was  to  use  in  his 
speech.  "What  then  are  the  modifications?"  they  asked.  I 
said  that  as  he  was  not  wanted  to  specify  them,  they  ought  to 
rest  and  be  happy  with  the  phrase.  I  said  that  all  that  I  had 
written  down  was  in  no  sort  of  way  binding  on  you,  and,  so  far 
as  you  were  concerned,  was  non-existing,  and  that  they  were  to 
be  treated  as  my  own  pious  opinions. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

P.  S. — I  said  that  I  gathered  that  you  would  not  be  in  this 
afternoon,  but  to-morrow  morning. 

Telegram,  Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

May  8,  1886. 

Stansfield  who  was  in  train  says  all  went  right  at  meeting 
this  afternoon  Herschell  not  there  thought  to  be  out  of  town  if 
you  do  not  hear  from  him  this  is  why. 

LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.   Arnold   Morley   to   Mr.   Labouchere 

12  DOWNING  STREET,  S.  W.,  May  8, 1886. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — Herschell  had  to  leave  town  before 
the  end  of  the  Cabinet,  and  on  his  return  on  Monday  he  will  be 
sitting  in  the  House  of  Lords. 

Perhaps  later  on  it  may  be  arranged. 


i886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         339 

Would  you  or  would  you  not  telegraph  to  him  to  explain  his 
not  coming? — Yours  truly, 

ARNOLD  MORLEY. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

Sunday,  May  9,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — On  coming  back  here  from  Hast- 
ings, I  have  found  this  letter  from  Arnold  Morley.  I  think  that 
the  "cave  in"  is  complete,  and  if  you  only  seize  the  first  oppor- 
tunity to  accentuate  it  and  to  recognise  it,  your  triumph  will  be 
complete — details  are,  comparatively  speaking,  unimportant. 
If  you  get  into  a  discussion  about  them  you  lose  your  triumph. 
You  went  for  "full  representation,"  and,  as  I  understand  it,  you 
get  it.  At  the  meeting  at  Hastings  a  speaker  alluded  to  you — 
dead  silence.  The  man  next  me  said,  "A  few  months  ago  they 
would  have  all  cheered."  When  I  spoke  I  said  that  I  thought 
Mr.  Gladstone  would  agree  to  Irish  Representatives,  in  which 
case  I  thought  that  you  would  vote  for  Second  Reading  upon 
which  the  audience  cheered  again  and  again.  This  shows  how 
the  cat  jumps  even  in  a  place  like  Hastings,  which  is  not  very 
Radical. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Sunday,  May  9, 1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Morley  has  just  been  here.  He 
don't  want  you  to  be  told  more  than  that  you  will  be  satisfied. 
I  told  him  that  I  had  seen  you,  and  had  said  generally  that  you 
were  mistaken  in  supposing  that  the  Cabinet  did  not  intend  to 
yield,  and  that  I  had  gathered  from  you  that  if  they  did,  you 
would  probably  vote  for  the  Second  Reading.  They  are,  I  find, 
in  some  trouble  about  their  definite  statement  about  the  third 
point — the  right  of  the  Irish  to  come  here  by  requisition  of  the 
Dublin  Parliament  on  all  Imperial  matters.  They  are  prepared 
to  elaborate  some  plan  for  them  to  legislate — or  to  have  the  power 
to  legislate — upon  such  matters,  but  they  have  not  yet  themselves 
made  out  the  plan  to  their  satisfaction,  nor  can  they  agree  as  to 
what  is  Imperial  and  what  is  not.  Mr.  Gladstone  therefore  will 


340  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

be  rather  guarded  on  this  head,  but  he  will  (says  Morley)  make 
it  quite  clear  that  they  accept  the  principle,  and  they  bona  fide 
are  prepared  to  give  it  effect.  They  are,  moreover,  rather  afraid 
of  being  too  definite,  because  they  have  not  seen  nor  heard  any- 
thing from  Parnell,  and  will  not  have  the  opportunity  to  do  so 
before  the  debate  commences.  They  assert  that  practically 
representation  and  taxation  involve  pretty  well  all  Imperial 
measures — and  this  is  to  a  great  extent  the  fact,  for  the  Crown 
declares  war,  makes  treaties,  etc.  Anyhow  they  are  quite  ready 
to  meet  you  on  this,  and  if  you  think  that  Mr.  Gladstone's  words 
are  too  vague,  or  can  suggest  any  others,  Herschell  will  consult 
with  you.  Morley  says  that  they  are  not  going  to  take  the  de- 
bate next  week,  de  die  in  diem.  So  if  needed,  anything  can  be 
cleared  up  on  Tuesday.  But  he,  of  course,  is  anxious  that  you 
should  declare  your  acceptance  of  the  Bill  as  soon  as  possible. 

I  finally  told  him  to  impress  upon  his  great  chief,  that  he  must 
be  clear.  I  really  think  that  they  are  fully  prepared  to  satisfy 
you. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

40  PRINCE'S  GARDENS,  S.  W.,  Sunday. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — What  does  your  letter  mean?  It 
seems  to  me  that  you  are  being  bamboozled  by  the  old  Parlia- 
mentary hand.  Both  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Herbert  Gladstone 
told  people  yesterday  that  they  were  not  going  to  give  way. 

I  am  not  going  to  leave  the  matter  to  Committee ;  unless  the 
assurances  to-morrow  are  precise  and  definite,  I  shall  certainly 
vote  against  the  Second  Reading. — Yours  very  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Monday,  May  10,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Morley  did  not  leave  until  one 
o'clock  this  morning,  when  I  had  a  letter  posted  to  you.  I  think 
that  I  put  it  perhaps  too  strongly  about  the  "On  Imperial  mat- 
ters," but  I  had  been  fighting  for  the  exact  words,  and  was  cross 


i886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         341 

about  their  not  being  precisely  as  I  understood  they  were  to  be. 
Morley  vowed  that  they  would  be.  I  said  that  they  were  not. 
Practically  they  are.  I  really  do  believe  that  they  have  not  got 
a  definition  of  "imperial,"  and  they  only  do  not  want  to  bind 
themselves  to  the  Irish  Parliament  being  obliged  to  demand 
representation.  I  said  "peace  and  war."  Morley  replied,  "this 
belongs  to  the  Crown,  and  is  raised  by  supplies."  I  suggested 
"a  commercial  reciprocity  treaty."  He  replied,  "this  too  is  in 
the  hands  of  the  Crown,  and  is  raised  by  a  change  in  taxation." 

I  do  not  think  that  there  is  any  mala  fides,  but  a  desire  to 
avoid  hostile  criticism,  on  "what  is  Imperial."  Morley  vowed 
to  me  again  and  again  that  there  was  no  intention  to  dodge,  and 
that  having  given  up  the  principle  they  asked  for  nothing  better 
than  to  make  it  full.  I  suggested,  "all  questions  not  excluded  by 
the  Bill."  He  replied,  "  state  what  questions,  not  involved  in  tax- 
ation, you  mean,  and  show  where  one  does  not  overlap  the  other." 

As  regards  the  Committee,  they  still  hold  to  it,  and  this  will 
cover  most  of  the  questions. 

Please  think  this  over,  and  if  you  can  suggest  any  definite 
line  of  demarcation,  and  will  give  it  me  in  the  House,  I  will  let 
Mr.  Gladstone  have  it  before  he  speaks. 

My  last  words  to  Morley  were:  "  Chamberlain  is  quite  fair  on 
his  side:  he  has  a  natural  distrust  of  the  old  Parliamentary  hand, 
and  will  not  be  humbugged.  He  no  doubt  will  not  quarrel  over 
mere  words,  but  he  must  have  the  substance.  Knock  this  well 
into  Mr.  Gladstone's  head." 

I  write  you  this,  because,  thinking  it  over,  I  may  have  exag- 
gerated a  thing  in  which  there  is  nothing  important. — Yours 
truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

HOUSE  OF  COMMONS,  Monday,  May  10,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  gave  Arnold  Morley  three 
questions  to  take  to  Mr.  Gladstone. 

1 .  Would  he  propose  the  retention  of  Irish  Members  for  all 
questions  of  taxation? 

2.  Would  they  come  here  like  English  Members? 


342  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

3.  Would  taxation  include  everything  which  was  involved 
in  Imperial  taxation  affecting  them? 

He  answered  "yes"  to  all,  but  said  that  in  regard  to  taxation 
he  had  suddenly  thought  that  the  tea  tax  is  renewed  every  year, 
and  that  he  had  not  put  this  before  the  Cabinet,  but  he  personally 
had  no  sort  of  objection  to  their  voting  on  it,  and  did  not  suppose 
that  the  Cabinet  had. 

I  suggested  that  Herschell  should  see  you.  He  writes  to  say 
that  he  will  be  engaged  all  Tuesday  and  suggests  Wednesday. 

I  have  told  them — which  they  all  know — that  the  speech  has 
produced  the  most  deplorable  effect,  and  that  you  are  quite 
right  in  being  indignant ;  and  that  unless  they  definitely  make  up 
their  minds  to  explain  everything  satisfactorily,  the  Bill  is  lost. 
This  they  admit. 

I  am  urging  on  them  to  agree  to  introduce  themselves  a  clause 
about  "other  Imperial  matters,"  and  I  tell  them  that  unless 
they  are  frank  and  yield  on  such  points  it  is  utterly  vain  to  hope 
to  win  over  you  or  any  one  else. 

The  funny  thing  is  that  Mr.  Gladstone  has  walked  off  under 
the  conviction  that  his  speech  was  most  satisfactory. — Yours, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Telegram,  Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

HOUSE  OF  COMMONS,  May  n,  1886. 

I  think  they  are  quite  conscious  of  their  mistake,  and  ready 
to  capitulate  along  the  line.  Would  it  not  be  possible  to  see  the 
emissary  to-morrow  or  Thursday? 

LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

40  PRINCE'S  GARDENS,  S.  W.,  May  n,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — In  the  remarkable  speech  of  the 
Prime  Minister  last  night, r  nothing  impressed  me  more  than  the 
passages  in  which  he  spoke  of  the  advantages  of  public  declara- 
tions in  the  House  of  Commons  as  contrasted  with  the  incon- 
venience of  underground  negotiations  carried  on  elsewhere. 

1  Motion  made  for  Second  Reading  of  Home  Rule  Bill  and  amendment, 
on  May  loth. 


1886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         343 

Under  all  circumstances  you  will,  I  am  sure,  approve  my 
decision  not  to  enter  on  any  further  private  discussions  of  the 
proposals  of  the  Government. 

If  they  have  any  fresh  modifications  to  suggest,  I  hope  they  will 
state  them  in  the  House,  when  I  am  sure  they  will  receive  the  most 
favourable  consideration  from  all  who,  like  myself,  deeply  regret 
the  differences  of  opinion  which  have  arisen  in  the  Liberal  Party. 

I  am  engaged  all  Wednesday,  but  this  is  of  no  consequence, 
as  in  the  present  position  of  matters  no  good  could  come  of  any 
private  interview. — Yours  very  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr.  Labouchere  appends  a  note  to  this  letter  as  follows : 

"This  is  in  reply  to  a  letter  I  wrote  Chamberlain  last  night 
to  say  that  he  would  do  well  to  keep  quiet,  as  probably  Herschel, 
would  see  him  on  Wednesday — not  having  been  able  to  see  him 
last  Saturday." 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

TWICKENHAM,  May  17,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — If  I  speak  to-day  or  to-morrow, 
I  shall  say  nothing  about  negotiations. 

This  is,  I  think,  about  what  occurred.  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
ready  to  yield  and  bring  in  the  "  Imperial  matters"  Clause  before 
the  Saturday  Cabinet.  At  the  Cabinet  he  was  asked  whether 
he  had  elaborated  such  a  clause,  which  previously  he  had  said 
was  impossible  to  devise.  He  had  to  admit  that  he  had  not,  and 
so  a  lot  of  asses,  some  of  whom  did  not  understand  the  exact  point, 
and  the  necessity  of  sticking  to  any  agreement,  talked  on  until 
it  was  time  for  them  all  to  go  away. 

On  Sunday,  when  I  first  saw  Arnold  Morley  after  receiving 
your  note,  he  vowed  that  it  was  all  agreed  to,  and  as  I  told  you 
I  wrote  down  the  three  points  in  his  presence.  When  he  came 
in  the  evening,  after  having  sent  to  Mr.  Gladstone,  he  explained 
that  it  was  impossible  absolutely  to  say  that  Mr.  Gladstone  would 
pledge  himself  to  bring  in  the  Third  Clause,  because  he  had  not 
framed  any  Clause,  and  could  not  give  a  definite  promise  until 
he  knew  whether  he  could  frame  it.  I  urged  him  not  to  leave 


344  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

Mr.  Gladstone  until  he  had  framed  it,  and  there  was  a  Cabinet 
on  Monday.  Still  it  was  not  framed.  Hence  Mr.  Gladstone's 
extraordinary  shilly-shally  speech.  They  all  perceived  what 
fools  they  had  been,  except  those  who  were  anxious  that  no 
agreement  should  be  come  to  with  you  (notably  Harcourt  who 
is  playing  for  the  succession),  and  it  was  hoped  that  Herschell 
would  be  able  to  smooth  down  matters.  There  was  to  be  a 
Cabinet  on  Thursday,  and  I  think  the  Clause  would  have  been 
framed,  only  by  this  time  they  did  not  see  why  they  should  yield, 
if  concession  would  not  ensure  the  Bill,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  (as 
usual)  thought  that  time  should  be  taken  to  see  how  things 
developed  themselves. 

In  the  House,  as  you  know,  there  is  a  feeling  that  the  Bill 
should  be  read  as  a  declaration  of  the  principle  of  "a  local  legis- 
lature," and  nothing  more.  Mr.  Gladstone  has  not  said  a  word 
about  this.  It  would  be  a  bitter  pill,  and  he  is  just  now  in  a 
prophetic  state  of  belief  that,  if  he  dissolves,  he  will  carry  every- 
thing before  him.  What  the  Constituencies  will  do,  neither  you, 
nor  he,  nor  any  one  else  can  predicate.  It  may  be  that  with  the 
Irish  vote,  the  desire  to  settle,  the  belief  in  him,  and  the  notion 
that  he  has  been  treated  ungenerously,  he  will  win.  My  impres- 
sion is  that  we  shall  be  much  as  we  are,  except  that  the  Tories 
will  be  strengthened  at  the  expense  of  the  Liberal  and  Radical 
seceders. 

Now,  I  put  this  to  you  for  my  private  information.  It  is  no 
proposal  from  Government.  They  hold  that  you  are  irreconcil- 
able, and  are  sulking.  Supposing  that  he  would  withdraw  the 
Bill  after  Second  Reading,  could  you  have  a  better  and  a  bigger 
triumph?  Read  Salisbury's  speech.  Does  this  look  like  real 
union?  Randolph  is  used  to  promise  privately,  but  Salisbury 
has  a  vague  idea  of  honour,  and  so  he  explains  what  such  promises 
are  worth. 

Of  course  I  don't  know  what  Hartington  promises.1     But 

1  On  May  I4th,  a  meeting  summoned  by  Lord  Hartington  met  at  Devon- 
shire House,  at  which  Mr.  Chamberlain  was  present.  It  was  calculated  at 
this  meeting  that  the  "dissenting  Liberals"  would  amount  to  something  over 
one  hundred.  The  important  point  of  the  meeting  was  that  Mr.  Chamberlain 
and  Lord  Hartington  agreed,  for  the  time,  to  act  together  and  to  vote  against 
the  Second  Reading. 


i886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         345 

does  he  love  you?    No.    The  Whigs  are  all  running  about 
boasting  how  they  have  you  in  their  toils. 

You  may  believe  me  or  not,  but  I  really  do  want  to  see  a  way 
to  a  reconciliation,  because  I  want  you  to  be  our  leader.  A 
reconciliation  is  still  possible  on  the  basis  of  withdrawing  the 
Bill  after  reading  it  a  second  time.  To  withdraw  it  before  would 
be  too  much  humble  pie,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  sees — and  no  doubt 
you  do — that  this  would  ruin  him.  Moreover,  the  man  has 
some  feeling  in  the  matter. 

Supposing  that  you  were  to  announce  on  Thursday  that  the 
Government  must  withdraw  after  Second  Reading.  If  Mr. 
Gladstone  was  to  do  this,  afterwards,  he  would  be  knocking  under 
completely,  and  yet  almost  all  the  Radicals  (except  Illingworth 
and  Co.)  would  endorse  your  suggestion. 

By  autumn  many  things  may  happen.  Mr.  Gladstone 
would  have  brought  in  a  Bill,  he  would  have  withdrawn  it  on 
your  demand,  and  you  may  depend  on  it,  he  never  would  bring 
in  one  again  in  the  same  shape,  but  one  satisfactory  to  Radicals 
and  unsatisfactory  to  Whigs  and  Conservatives. 

This  therefore  seems  to  me  far  better  than  discussing  conces- 
sions, whilst  from  your  own  standpoint  I  emphatically  say  that 
it  is  better  for  you  than  to  go  to  the  country  against  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, against  what  is  called  the  party,  and  with  such  a  lot  as 
Salisbury  and  the  Whigs,  who  regard  you  as  the  devil  incarnate. 
Let  the  latter  gravitate  to  the  Tories. 

There  is  also  this:  sentiment  is  a  factor  in  politics.  The  notion 
that  you  are  in  any  way  acting  ungenerously  to  Mr.  Gladstone 
renders,  or  will  render,  the  Radicals  rabid  against  you,  and  after 
all  they  are  the  only  persons  who  agree  with  you  in  politics,  or 
who  have  any  real  idea  of  being  your  party. 

I  write  this  for  your  private  eye.  I  shall  not  say  to  any  one 
that  I  have  written  to  you. 

If,  however,  you  hold  to  the  idea  of  the  Second  Reading 
and  the  withdrawal,  I  would  work  in  that  direction. — Yours 
truly, 

I ! .  LABOUCHERE. 

P.  S. — Your  Ulster  fervour  does  not  wash.     They  are  utter 
humbugs,  these  worthy  Orangemen. 


346  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Ldbouchere 

40  PRINCE'S  GARDENS,  S.  W.,  May  17,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — I  have  never  doubted  your  sincere 
desire  to  bring  about  an  arrangement.  I  do  not  intend  to  make 
any  allusion  in  public  to  the  negotiations.  I  blame  no  one  for 
their  failure — there  were  misunderstandings  on  both  sides.  But 
I  cannot  conceive  how  Mr.  Gladstone  could  have  supposed  that 
the  terms  of  his  speech  were  calculated  to  meet  the  objections 
taken.  As  regards  the  present  situation  I  am  pledged  now  to  vote 
against  the  Second  Reading,  and  I  must  do  so,  whatever  may  be 
said  as  to  subsequent  withdrawal. 

Our  friends  feel — and  I  think  they  are  right — that  they  cannot 
treat  a  vote  for  Second  Reading  of  a  Bill  as  though  it  were  only 
an  abstract  resolution. 

I  admit  the  truth  of  nearly  all  that  you  say  as  to  the  pros- 
pects of  the  party.  No  man  can  foretell  the  results  of  the  General 
Election,  but  I  expect  with  you  that  the  Tories  will  gain.  I  think 
they  will  gain  chiefly  at  the  expense  of  the  supporters  of  the  Bill, 
but  in  this  I  may  be  mistaken. 

I  cannot  struggle  against  the  torrent  of  lies  and  slanders 
directed  against  my  personal  action.  I  can  only  say  that  I  have 
been,  I  believe,  more  anxious  for  reconciliation  that  any  one  of  my 
followers  or  present  allies.  I  have  not  to  my  knowledge  said  a 
single  bitter  word  about  Mr.  Gladstone,  or  expressed  either  in 
private  or  in  public  anything  but  respect  for  him  and  belief  in 
his  absolute  sincerity.  Yet  in  spite  of  this  the  supporters  of  the 
Government  are  more  bitter  against  me  than  against  any  one 
else. 

For  the  present  I  shall  maintain  the  same  reserve,  and  shall 
not  attempt  reprisals ;  but  if  the  discussion  goes  on  much  longer 
on  the  same  terms  I  suppose  I  shall  have  to  defend  myself  and 
to  say  what  I  think  of  some  of  those  gentlemen  who,  having 
swallowed  their  own  principles  and  professions,  are  indignant 
with  me  because  my  digestion  is  less  accommodating. 

I  have  an  enormous  correspondence,  some  of  it  hostile,  but 
most  of  it  friendly.  The  breach  in  the  party  is  widening,  and  in 
a  short  time  it  will  be  beyond  repair. 

All  I  can  say  is  that  I  have  done  all  in  my  power  to  heal  it — 


x886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         347 

short  of  giving  up  my  conscientious  convictions  and  assenting 
to  measures  which  I  believe  are  totally  wrong.  I  have  not  the 
least  feeling  against  Mr.  Gladstone ;  he  is  sincere  in  all  that  he  is 
doing — but  I  cannot  think  favourably  of  many  of  those  who  are 
loud  in  his  support,  but  who  to  my  certain  knowledge  are  as 
much  opposed  to  his  Bills  in  their  hearts  as  I  am  myself. — Yours 
very  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

P.  S. — Salisbury's  speech  is  as  bad  as  anything  can  be. l 
Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

TRUTH  BUILDINGS,  CARTERET  STREET, 
QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  S.  W. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Herschell  and  one  or  two  others 
were  to  meet  (or  possibly  have  met)  to-day  to  decide  upon  what 
proposals  were  to  be  submitted  to  you.  But  I  will  let  them  have 
your  letter.  If  the  G.  O.  M.  loses  his  Bill,  it  will  be  from  not 
having  been  able  to  be  clear  for  five  minutes  in  his  seventy-seven 
years, — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

Tuesday— or  rather  Wednesday  Morning,  May  25,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  am  pretty  certain  that  unless 
wiser  counsels  prevail,  Mr.  Gladstone  will  not  consent  to  with- 
draw the  Clause.  Childers,  who  has  been  doing  all  that  he  can 
to  induce  him  to  do  so,  finds  that  the  Cabinet  (so  far  as  they 
have  an  opinion)  are  against  it,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  strongly  so. 
Morley  vows  that  he  would  rather  die,  and  that  sort  of  thing. 
I  cannot  find  that  they  have  any  valid  reason  for  this,  but  so 
it  is. 

Mr.  Gladstone  will,  I  think,  in  as  plain  words  as  possible  (if 
he  can  be  plain  for  a  few  minutes),  fall  back  upon  the  programme 

1  Mr.  Chamberlain  was  probably  referring  to  Lord  Salisbury's  speech  of 
May  1 5th,  in  which  he  suggested  that  the  Irish  belonged  to  the  races  incapable 
of  self-government,  such  as — the  Hottentots! 


348  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

that  we  were  negotiating,  and  say  that  he  will  so  modify  the  Bill 
in  Committee  that  it  will  give  the  Irish  Representation  here  on 
Imperial  matters,  and  he  seems  to  have  a  notion  floating  in  his 
brain  of  announcing  that  if  the  Second  Reading  be  passed  he 
will  either  withdraw  or  defer  the  Bill. 

The  notion  seems  to  be  that  the  Liberal  opponents  may  be 
put  down  at  100,  and  that  this  will  reduce  them  to  70;  these 
calculations,  however,  are  evidently  upon  exceedingly  vague 
data. 

It  is  pretty  clear  that  a  number  of  the  opponents  do  not  like 
the  idea  of  a  dissolution,  and  that  they  are  very  anxious  for  an 
arrangement.  It  is  therefore  quite  possible  that  they  will  come 
in  upon  some  such  basis. 

Do  pray  think  the  matter  over,  and  consider  whether  it  is 
not  worth  your  while  taking  these  assurances  as  a  concession  to 
you.  Of  course  it  is  not  certain  that  they  will  be  definite,  but 
you  might  insist  upon  their  being  made  definite  in  the  House  of 
Commons. 

I  think  that  it  is  a  proof  of  astounding  weakness  not  giving 
up  the  Clause.  These  people  can  never  make  up  their  minds 
either  to  fight  or  to  make  peace.  The  G.  O.  M.  has  a  natural 
love  of  shilly-shally,  and  those  around  him  encourage  him  in  this 
for  their  own  purposes.  My  own  belief  is  that  they  don't  want 
you  to  vote  for  the  Bill,  and  that  you  would  spoil  their  game 
if  you  did.  The  G.  0.  M.  cannot  last,  and  if  only  you  would 
rally  you  would  be  certain  of  the  mantle,  whereas  with  Goschen 
and  Hartington  you  never  possibly  can  get  on. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  The  Derby  Day,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — If  you  can  agree  to  anything  less 
than  the  excision  of  the  twenty-fourth  Clause,  and  consider  that 
it  would  be  useful  to  let  Mr.  Gladstone  know  this,  could  you 
write  me  a  letter  stating  your  views?  This  I  could  let  Mr. 
Gladstone  have  to-morrow  morning,  as  a  letter  to  me  and  not 
intended  for  him  to  see,  with  the  understanding  that  it  is  for  his 


i886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         349 

private  reading  and  not  for  his  Cabinet.  It  might  probably 
lead  him  to  go  farther  than  he  otherwise  would  in  his  concessions. 
He,  no  doubt,  wants  to  pass  his  Bill,  and  although  he  believes 
that  he  would  sweep  the  country  at  an  election,  he  must  in  his 
calmer  moments  know  that  he  may  possibly  not  do  so.  But  I  am 
certain  that  there  are  men  in  the  Cabinet  who,  whilst  pretending 
to  be  in  favour  of  conciliation,  are  doing  all  they  can  to  pre- 
vent it — some  arbitrarily,  and  some  because  their  private  am- 
bitions point  to  your  being  forced  into  a  position  of  antagonism. 
I  do  not  think  that  Mr.  Gladstone  will  be  likely  to  change  in 
regard  to  the  Cabinet  decision  respecting  the  twenty-fourth 
Clause.  The  point  therefore  is  to  find  some  other  mode  of 
ensuring  what  is  practically  a  surrender  in  respect  to  Irish  repre- 
sentation here.  The  excision  of  the  Clause  is  the  simple  and 
direct  method,  but  when  did  our  venerable  friend  ever  take  the 
direct  method?  If,  however,  he  clearly,  distinctly,  and  definitely 
pledges  himself  to  introduce  a  Clause  having  the  same  object  as 
the  excision,  and  to  incorporate  it  in  his  Bill,  the  result  is  the  same, 
although  the  road  may  not  be  quite  as  straight.  He  might  easily 
be  parried  in  the  House  by  your  saying,  "  I  understand  the  Prime 
Minister  to,  etc.,  etc.,"  and  then  you  might  fairly  say  that  you 
have  got  precisely  what  you  want,  and  thus  bear  off  the  honours 
of  war.  You  have  never  publicly  insisted  upon  the  particular 
mode  by  means  of  which  the  desired  end  is  to  be  attained. — 
Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  Wednesday. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  have  just  got  your  note  and 
have  privately  let  Mr.  Gladstone  know  your  position.  I  have 
suggested  this,  that  if  he  intends  to  insert  a  Clause  giving  the 
Irish  Representation,  he  must  necessarily  withdraw  the  twenty- 
fourth,  and  that  consequently  he  can  use  the  word  "withdraw," 
which  might  get  over  the  difficulty.  But  whether  he  will  do 
this,  I  don't  know.  Except  that  the  Cabinet  would  not  hear  of 
the  withdrawal,  and  leaving  matters  as  they  are  in  regard  to 


350  HENRY   LABOUCHERE  [1886 

Irish  Representation  until  future  Legislation,  they  seem  to  have 
left  him  a  free  hand. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 


Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

Thursday,  May  26,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — There  is  no  doubt  about  the  pro- 
rogation. It  was  settled  last  night,  much  against  the  wishes  of 
some,  who  regard  it  as  too  much  of  a  surrender.  I  have  been 
urging  that  Fowler,  who  is  to  speak  after  some  Conservative  who 
has  got  the  adjournment  for  to-morrow,  should  translate  from 
one  hour  of  Gladstonese  into  five  minutes  of  English.  The 
absurd  objection  to  this  is  (as  yet)  that  he  is  not  in  the 
Cabinet.  My  impression  is  that  most  of  the  Radicals  will 
return  to  the  fold.  They  don't  like  a  dissolution,  with  a  Liberal 
enemy  against  them.  This  is  all  very  well  for  you,  but  the  fry 
will  go  to  the  wall  in  these  localities.  Some  of  the  Scotch  have 
also  come  in. 

After  all,  if  Mr.  Gladstone  withdraws  his  Bill  and  agrees  to 
bring  in  another,  in  which  Clause  twenty-four  is  to  be  reversed— 
the  exclusion  being  inclusion — he  does  more  than  withdraw  the 
clause,  and  the  prorogation  was  really  only  decided  on  by  Mr. 
Gladstone  in  order  to  give  you  full  satisfaction.  Caine,  I  hear, 
says  that  he  never  will  vote  for  the  Bill — probably  not,  consider- 
ing the  influence  of  the  Cavendishes  at  Barrow.  If  he  did,  he 
would  not  get  in. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

May  29,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — I  think  that  I  have  arranged  for 
a  written  antidote  which  will  appear  on  Monday  to  the  "  responsi- 
ble frivolity"  of  our  loquacious  and  indiscreet  friend.  I  am  not 
yet  quite  sure  whether  it  is  arranged,  so  please  don't  say  anything 
to  any  one  about  it,  or,  if  it  appears,  say  that  I  had  anything  to 
do  with  it.  He  insists  that  he  said  in  the  House  exactly  what 


x886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         351 

he  had  said  at  the  Meeting.  *  Reading  his  speech,  it  is  difficult  to 
pin  him  to  any  particular  passage — the  only  thing  that  can  be 
said  is  that  he  used  phrases,  which  might  cover  a  wider  principle 
than  "a  domestic  Legislature  for  Irish  affairs."  I  was  asked  to 
put  on  paper  my  objections  to  the  speech. 

I  took  these  points:  (i.)  that  he  made  a  vote  cover  a  general 
recognition  of  the  Bill;  (2.)  that  he  studiously  limited  all  " recon- 
struction" to  a  particular  point;  (3.)  that  he  implied,  and  almost 
stated  that  the  Bill  was  to  be  introduced,  and  made  no  clear  offer 
to  consider  the  whole  subject  of  the  details  which  were  to  give 
effect  to  the  principle  of  his  domestic  Legislature  principle,  and 
did  not  say  that  he  would  consider  any  suggestions  offered  to 
him  by  leading  persons  in  the  Liberal  Party. 

These  are,  in  point  of  fact,  your  criticisms,  not  mine. 

He  was  astounded  at  any  one  not  finding  all  this  in  his  speech, 
but  I  said  that,  surprising  as  this  might  be,  no  one  friend  or  foe 
had  found  anything  of  the  kind. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  real  object  of  all  should  be  to  tide 
over  the  present  conjunction,  and  to  leave  everything  "without 
prejudice  "  for  this  autumn  Session.  The  public  do  not  know  the 
object  of  their  adoration  as  we  do.  He  is  still  their  fetish,  and 
they  regard  any  doubt  of  his  divine  character  as  sacrilege. 

I  should  have  thought  that  Henry  James'  idea  of  not  voting 
would  have  suited  both  you  and  Hartington.  It  certainly  is  the 
most  logical  outcome  of  the  position.  He  says  that  the  Bill  is  a 
mere  declaration  of  principle.  You  say  that  it  may  be  more. 
He  offers  to  withdraw  the  Bill,  after  the  principle  has  been  ratified 
by  a  vote.  You  cannot  quite  believe  him  in  anything  beyond 
that  the  Bill  will  be  withdrawn.  This  being  so,  if  all  of  you  were 
to  agree  to  leave  him  and  his  principle  to  find  their  level  in  the 
House  of  Commons — to  say  that  you  are  for  a  domestic  legisla- 
ture, and  therefore  cannot  vote  for  the  Bill,  but  that  you  are  not 
for  more,  and  therefore  that  you  cannot  vote  for  a  Bill  which 
may  involve  more.  I  think  that  this  would  put  you  quite  right 
with  the  Radicals,  and  leave  you  a  free  hand,  although  it  may 

1  On  May  27th  Mr.  Gladstone  held  a  meeting  of  Liberals  at  the  Foreign 
Office,  when,  in  a  conciliatory  speech,  he  declared  that  the  Government  desired, 
by  a  vote  on  the  Second  Reading,  no  more  than  to  establish  the  principle 
of  a  measure,  which  was  to  give  Home  Rule  to  Ireland. 


352  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

be  doubtful  whether  the  Whigs,  who  go  against  principle  and 
details,  would  be  quite  so  wise  to  accept  this  solution. 

If,  however,  the  Whigs  do  vote,  and  if  you  and  your  people 
abstain,  it  is  not  quite  certain  that  we  should  carry  the  Bill;  in 
which  case  the  outcry  would  be  against  the  abstainers,  and  they 
would  be  cursed  for  precipitating  a  dissolution  against  the  idol. 

According  to  the  Whips,  Saunders  has  again  got  salvation. 
Half  of  these  people  are  like  women,  who  are  pleased  to  keep  up 
the  "I  will"  and  "I  won't"  as  long  as  possible  in  order  to  be 
counted.  Generally  this  ends  in  "I  will." 

Akers  Douglas  told  the  Whips  last  night  that  the  debate  was 
not  to  end  before  Thursday;  they  could  not  quite  make  out 
whether  this  was  official  or  not. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  June  5,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — At  the  desire  of  a  large  number  of 
Radical  Members  of  Parliament,  I  write  to  make  an  appeal  to 
you  with  regard  to  your  attitude  upon  the  Government  for 
Ireland  Bill.  They  are  all  of  them  amongst  your  warmest  ad- 
mirers, and  they  have  always  looked  to  you  as  the  leader  of  their 
phase  of  political  thought.  They  advocated  your  "  unauthorised 
programme"  at  the  last  General  Election,  and  they  have  per- 
sistently defended  you  against  the  attacks  and  aspersions  of  all 
who  have  denounced  you  and  your  views  upon  political  or  social 
issues.  With  much  that  you  have  said  upon  the  Irish  Bill  they 
agree,  and  they  think  that  they  have  a  right  to  ask  you  to  give 
a  fair  consideration  to  any  request  that  they  may  make  to  you 
in  order  to  maintain  the  union  which  they  are  anxious  should 
exist  between  you  and  them.  In  your  speech  upon  the  Second 
Reading  of  the  Bill,  you  said  that  you  were  in  favour  of  the 
principles  of  a  separate  domestic  Legislature  for  Ireland,  with 
due  reservations,  but  that  you  did  not  consider  that  Mr.  Glad- 
stone had  made  it  sufficiently  clear  that  voting  for  the  Bill  would 
mean  nothing  but  a  recognition  of  this  principle,  and  would 
leave  its  supporters  absolute  independence  of  judgment  with 
regard  to  the  new  Bill  that  he  might  introduce  in  an  autumn 


i886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY          353 

Session.  I  think  that  he  has  met  this  objection  in  his  letter  to 
Mr.  Moulton  that  has  been  published  to-day.  We  think,  there- 
fore, that  perhaps  you  could  not  respond  to  our  wishes,  and  either 
vote  for  the  Bill  or — if  you  could  not  go  so  far  as  this — abstain 
from  voting.  The  issue  of  the  division  on  Monday  is,  we  believe, 
entirely  in  your  hands.  Should  the  Bill  be  lost  there  will  be  a 
General  Election  at  once,  which  will  disturb  the  trade  and  com- 
merce of  the  country;  and  it  will  take  place  at  a  time  which,  as 
no  doubt  you  are  aware,  will  be  the  worst  period  of  the  year  for 
the  Radicals,  owing  to  the  Registration  Laws  now  in  force.  It  is 
impossible  to  shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  a  General  Election, 
without  you  on  our  side,  may  lead  to  a  Whig-Tory,  or  Tory- 
Whig  Government,  which  would  relegate  to  the  dim  and  distant 
future  all  those  measures  which  you  and  we  so  ardently  desire 
may  become  law.  Under  these  circumstances  is  it  too  much  for 
us  to  ask  you  to  make  an  effort  to  avert  all  these  contingencies? 
When  Achilles  returned  to  his  tent,  the  Greeks  were  defeated. 
What  would  it  have  been  had  Achilles  lent  the  weight  of  his  arm 
to  the  Trojans?  I  fully  recognise  how  conciliatory  your  attitude 
has  been,  and  how  anxiously  you  have  sought  to  see  your  way 
from  disruption  during  all  the  discussions  which  I  have  had  with 
you.  I  still  cannot  help  hoping  that,  in  view  of  the  distant  assur- 
ances of  Mr.  Gladstone  in  his  letter  to  Mr.  Moulton,  and  in  view 
of  the  wishes  of  so  many  of  your  warmest  admirers  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  you  will  see  your  way  to  defer  to  the  request  which, 
through  me,  they  make  to  you. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

June  5, 1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — This  letter  is  really  written  at  the 
desire  of  a  lot  of  Radicals.  They  were  pestering  me  all  last 
evening. 

The  position  is  this:  316  pledged  for,  136  pledged  against, 
leaving  out  the  Speaker  and  those  absent;  there  are  about  26 
not  absolutely  pledged  on  either  side,  or  inclined  to  reconsider 
their  pledges.  We  have  got  some  to  promise  to  abstain  or  to 
follow  the  Maker  Pease  in  voting  for  the  Bill.  But  we  have  not 
yet  enough,  and  so  far  as  I  can  see  at  present  the  Bill  is  lost. 


354  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

The  issue  therefore  really  depends  upon  you.  Surely  it 
would  be  well  to  stave  it  off  by  saving  the  Bill.  Much  may 
happen  before  autumn.  We  may  lose  the  G.  O.  M.,  who  has 
a  very  collapsed  look.  Anyhow,  if  he  does  bring  in  his  Bill  again, 
it  will  never  pass  in  the  autumn,  but  will  be  lost  by  a  large  majority. 

I  am  really  writing  to  you  without  speaking  to  any  one  of  the 
Government,  nor  at  the  suggestion  of  the  Government.  You 
might  yield  very  gracefully  to  the  Radicals,  and  I  make  the 
letter  an  appeal  forma  pauperis.  Were  you  to  do  so,  you  would 
become  the  most  popular  man  in  England,  with  all  who  are 
honestly  your  political  adherents,  for  I  need  not  say  that  the 
Whigs  and  Tories  are  not  likely  to  adore  you  for  long.  It  would 
be  delicious  to  spring  a  correspondence  on  the  Government  and 
the  public  on  Monday  morning.  I  am  going  down  to  Twicken- 
ham this  afternoon  until  Monday.  If  you  think  it  any  good  I 
would  meet  you  anywhere  before  going. 

This  occurred  to  me  yesterday.  Mr.  Gladstone  might  ad- 
journ the  debate  till  some  day  in  the  autumn  Session,  and  then 
carry  it  on,  after  stating  all  the  changes  he  will  make  in  his  Bill. 
The  difficulty  of  this  is,  that  he  vows  that  it  is  against  all  Parlia- 
mentary rule  to  legislate  after  the  Approbation  Act.  I  don't 
know  whether  he  could  meet  this  by  votes  on  account.  Then, 
too,  is  it  certain  that  he  would  have  a  majority?  If  however  you 
approve  of  this,  I  would  again  suggest  it. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

40  PRINCE'S  GARDENS,  S.  W.,  June  5,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — I  thank  you  for  your  letter  of  this 
morning,  and  sincerely  appreciate  the  spirit  in  which  it  is  written, 
but  especially  your  recognition  that  my  attitude  has  been  con- 
ciliatory throughout  these  unfortunate  differences,  and  that  I 
have  been  at  all  times  most  anxious  to  prevent  the  disruption 
of  the  Liberal  Party. 

You  do  not  give  me  the  names  of  the  friends  on  whose  behalf 
you  write,  and  who  now  urge  me  to  vote  in  favour  of  the  Second 
Reading  of  a  Bill  with  many  of  my  objections  to  which  they 
themselves  agree.  I  do  not  know  therefore  whether  or  no  they 


i886]       THE  SPLIT  IN  THE  LIBERAL  PARTY         355 

have  already  pledged  themselves  to  take  the  course  which  you 
urge  upon  me,  but  I  assume  that  this  is  the  case  as  I  have  not 
myself  received  any  communications  in  the  same  sense  from  any 
of  those  who  have  declared  their  inability  to  support  the  Second 
Reading. 

I  am  unable  to  accept  your  reference  to  my  speech  as  quite 
accurate,  but  I  adhere  on  every  point  to  the  words  of  the  original 
report.  I  quite  admit  that  Mr.  Gladstone  has  given  ample 
assurance  that  he  will  not  hold  any  member  who  may  vote  for 
the  Second  Reading  as  committed  thereby  to  a  similar  vote  for 
the  Second  Reading  of  the  Bill  when  reintroduced  in  October, 
but  the  question  still  remains  whether  such  members  will  not  be 
obliged  to  take  this  course  in  order  to  preserve  their  own  logical 
consistency. 

Up  to  the  present  time  Mr.  Gladstone  has  given  no  indica- 
tion whatever  that  the  Bill  to  be  presented  in  October  will  be 
materially  different  from  the  Bill  now  before  the  House.  On  the 
contrary,  he  has  distinctly  stated  that  he  will  not  depart  from 
the  main  outlines  of  the  present  measure.  It  is,  however,  to 
the  main  outlines  of  the  present  Bill  that  the  opposition  of  my 
friends  and  myself  has  been  directed,  and  it  appears  to  me  that 
we  should  be  stultifying  ourselves  if  we  were  to  abstain  at  the 
last  moment  from  giving  effect  to  our  conscientious  convictions. 
We  are  ready  to  accept  as  a  principle  the  expediency  of  establish- 
ing some  kind  of  legislative  authority  in  Ireland  subject  to  the 
conditions  which  Mr.  Gladstone  himself  has  laid  down,  but  we 
honestly  believe  that  none  of  these  conditions  are  satisfactorily 
secured  by  the  plan  which  has  been  placed  before  us.  I  share 
your  apprehension  as  to  the  General  Election  at  the  present 
time;  but  the  responsibility  for  this  must,  I  think,  rest  with 
those  who  will  have  brought  in  and  forced  to  a  division  a  Bill 
which,  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Bright,  "not  twenty  members 
outside  the  Irish  party  would  support  if  Mr.  Gladstone's  great 
authority  were  withdrawn  from  it." — I  am,  yours  very  truly, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

P.  S. — As  I  understand  that  many  Radical  members  are 
cognisant  of  your  letter,  I  propose  to  send  it  together  with  my 
reply  for  publication  in  the  Times. 


356  HENRY  LABOUCHERE  [1886 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

10  QUEEN  ANNE'S  GATE,  June  5,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  CHAMBERLAIN, — Yes,  I  thought  of  publishing 
if  you  were  to  agree — but  if  not — I  rather  think  it  would  not 
conduce  to  the  Second  Reading.  It  might  even  if  you  said  that 
you  would  advise  others  to  abstain,  or  something  of  that  sort. 
The  G.  0.  M.  will  die  rather  than  withdraw  his  Bill,  but  he  might 
perhaps  be  induced  to  adjourn  the  debate  until  autumn,  if  you 
were  to  suggest  this.  I  am  off  to  Twickenham,  as  I  have  Palto 
and  Ellen  Terry  coming  down,  who  (thank  God)  probably  have 
never  heard  of  the  infernal  Bill.  Randolph  is,  I  believe,  coming, 
but  I  suppose  it  is  no  use  asking  you  to  join  such  frivolous  society. 
My  conviction  is  that  the  Radicals  are  damned  for  years  if  we 
are  defeated  to-morrow. 

If  you  can  write  anything  comforting,  and  send  it  here  to- 
morrow morning,  I  will  tell  some  one  here  to  bring  it  down  at 
once  to  Pope's  Villa. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

SOME  CONSEQUENCES  OF  BALFOUR'S  COERCION 

POLICY 

WHEN  Mr.  Gladstone's  Government  was  defeated  on 
June  9  by  341  votes  to  311,  the  Prime  Minister 
immediately  dissolved  Parliament,  and  the  General  Election 
was  over  before  the  end  of  July,  the  Unionist  majority  being 
1 1 8.  Mr.  Gladstone  resigned  on  July  12,  before  the  final 
returns  were  sent  in,  and,  when  Parliament  met  again  in 
August,  Lord  Salisbury  was  Prime  Minister,  Sir  Michael 
Hicks-Beach,  Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland,  and  Lord  London- 
derry, Viceroy.  The  second  great  Home  Rule  battle  had 
been  fought  and  lost. 

Of  course  Irish  affairs  immediately  occupied  Parliament, 
but  on  September  21  the  Land  Bill,  introduced  by  Parnell, 
and  upon  which,  he  warned  the  House,  the  peace  of  Ire- 
land depended,  was  rejected  by  a  majority  of  95  votes. 
On  October  23,  the  Plan  of  Campaign  was  launched  and 
furiously  denounced  by  the  Conservatives  in  the  House  of 
Commons  and  on  every  platform  throughout  the  country. 
Sir  Michael  Hicks-Beach  resigned  the  Chief  Secretaryship 
on  account  of  his  failing  eyesight,  and  was  replaced  by  Mr. 
Balfour.  The  first  Parliament  that  met  in  1887  was  given 
notice  of  two  measures  for  Ireland — a  Coercion  Bill  to  be 
introduced  in  the  House  of  Commons  and  a  Land  Bill  in  the 
House  of  Lords.  The  Coercion  Bill  was  the  most  stringent 
of  its  kind  ever  introduced.  It  abridged  and  destroyed  the 

357 


358  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

constitutional  liberties  of  the  people  of  Ireland  and  created 
new  offences.  It  withdrew  the  protection  of  juries,  and  gave 
full  powers  to  resident  magistrates  of  dealing  with  cases  of 
intimidation  and  of  holding  public  meetings  against  the  will 
of  the  executive.  It  was  proposed,  moreover,  that  the 
measure  should  be  a  permanent  one,  and  not  restricted  to 
one  or  a  limited  number  of  years. x 

Two  extraordinary  events  occurred  in  that  year,  in  both 
of  which  Mr.  Labouchere  played  an  important  part.  They 
both  had  their  indirect  origin  in  the  coercive  measures  which 
Mr.  Balfour  succeeded  in  passing  through  the  House.  The 
first  took  place  during  the  spring,  when  the  Times,  in  order  to 
strengthen  the  hands  of  the  Government,  in  their  remorseless 
warfare  on  Irish  liberties,  published,  during  the  course  of  a 
series  of  articles  called  "Parnellism  and  Crime,"  the  fac- 
simile of  a  letter  supposed  to  have  been  written  by  Mr.  Par- 
nell  to  Mr.  Patrick  Egan  in  1882,  referring  brutally  to  the 
Phoenix  Park  murders.  The  letter  was  contained  in  the 
fourth  article  of  the  series.  The  reader  will  easily  perceive 
from  the  following  short  extracts  the  spirit  in  which  these 
articles  were  conceived:  "Be  the  ultimate  goal  of  these  men 
(the  Parnellites)  what  it  will,  they  are  content  to  march 
towards  it  in  company  with  murderers.  Murderers  provide 
their  funds,  murderers  share  their  inmost  counsels,  murderers 
have  gone  forth  from  the  League2  offices  to  set  their  bloody 
work  afoot,  and  have  presently  returned  to  consult  the 
'constitutional  leaders'  on  the  advancement  of  the  cause," 
occurred  in  the  first  article.  The  third  article  declared  that 
"even  now"  the  Parnellite  conspiracy  was  controlled  by 
dynamiters  and  assassins,  and  proceeded  thus:  "We  have 
seen  how  the  infernal  fabric  arose  'like  an  exhalation'  to 
the  sound  of  murderous  oratory;  how  assassins  guarded  it 

1  Lord  Eversley,  Gladstone  and  Ireland. 

*  The  Land  League  founded  by  Parnell  in  1879  for  the  purpose  of  bringing 
about  a  reduction  of  rack  rents,  and  facilitating  the  creation  of  a  peasant 
proprietary.  Egan  was  the  treasurer  of  the  Land  League. 


BALFOUR'S  COERCION  POLICY  359 

about,  and  enforced  thexhigh  decrees  of  the  secret  conclave 
within  by  the  ballot  and  the  knife.  Of  that  conclave  to-day, 
three  sit  in  the  Imperial  Parliament,  four  are  fugitives  from 
the  law."  The  first  series  of  the  articles  finished  up  with 
this  appeal:  "Men  of  England!  These  are  the  foul  and 
dastardly  methods  by  which  the  National  League  and  the 
Parnellites  have  established  their  terrorism  over  a  large 
portion  of  Ireland.  Will  you  refuse  the  Government  the 
powers  which  will  enable  these  cowardly  miscreants  to  be 
punished,  and  which  will  give  protection  to  the  millions  of 
honest  and  loyal  people  in  Ireland?" 

It  is  very  certain  that  all  Liberal  Unionists,  and  even  a  few 
of  the  more  educated  Tory  statesmen,  realised  that  the  arti- 
cles were  merely  theatrical  appeals  to  the  contracted  imagi- 
nations of  those  armchair  politicians,  whose  ways  of  in- 
fluencing voters  in  rural  districts  were  all  powerful,  but 
it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  the  man  in  the  street  could 
understand  them  as  such.  On  him  they  made  a  profound 
impression. 

The  first  article  appeared  on  March  7,  the  second  on  the 
I4th,  and  the  third  on  the  i8th.  On  the  22nd  Mr.  Balfour 
gave  notice  of  his  Coercion  Bill.  "Parnellism  and  Crime" 
had  prepared  the  way  for  him.  The  Bill  was  read  for  the 
first  time  in  the  beginning  of  April,  and  on  the  last  day  of  the 
debate  on  the  Second  Reading,  April  18,  the  Times  published 
its  piece  de  resistance — what  has  since  become  known  as 
"  the  facsimile  letter. "  It  ran  as  follows: 

15/5/82. 

DEAR  SIR, — I  am  not  surprised  at  your  friend's  anger,  but  he 
and  you  should  know  that  to  denounce  the  murders  was  the  only 
course  open  to  us.  To  do  that  promptly  was  plainly  our  best 
policy.  But  you  can  tell  him  and  all  others  concerned  that 
though  I  regret  the  accident  of  Lord  F.  Cavendish's  death,  I 
cannot  refuse  to  admit  that  Burke  got  no  more  than  his  deserts. 
You  are  at  liberty  to  show  him  this,  and  others  whom  you  can 


360  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

trust  also,  but  let  not  my  address  be  known.     He  can  write  to 
House  of  Commons. — Yours  very  truly, 

CHAS.  S.  PARNELL. 

I  have  before  me  the  photograph  of  the  facsimile  letter, 
used  in  the  Parnell  Commission,  and  also  the  letters  received 
by  Mr.  Labouchere  at  different  times  from  the  Irish  leader, 
and  it  seems  incredible,  on  comparing  the  general  style  and 
caligraphy  of  the  former  with  the  latter,  how  the  Times 
agents  and  Mr.  Soames  could  have  been  deceived  for  one 
moment ;  but  I  must  not  anticipate  in  this  place  the  verdict 
of  the  Commission  on  the  forgery,  in  the  obtaining  of  which 
Mr.  Labouchere  played  such  a  characteristic  part.  The 
whole  of  England  was  indignant  when  the  issue  of  the  Times 
containing  the  facsimile  letter  appeared  on  their  breakfast 
tables,  and  even  comparatively  tender-hearted  persons 
began  to  think  seriously  that  no  treatment  of  Ireland  by  the 
English  could  be  savage  enough  to  avenge  the  cold-hearted, 
calculating  cruelty  of  Parnell. 

Mr.  Balf our's  Coercion  Bill  had  not,  however,  yet  become 
law,  and  the  Times  continued  its  popular  articles,  which  were 
greedily  devoured  by  the  public,  the  body  of  the  second  and 
third  series  consisting  for  the  most  part  of  an  accumulation 
of  evidence  to  prove  that,  in  the  year  of  the  Land  League, 
the  conspirators  had  succeeded  in  getting  the  American 
Clan  na  Gael  and  the  Irish  Parliamentary  party  into  line. 
It  did  its  work  so  well  that,  by  the  8th  of  July,  when  the 
Coercion  Bill  passed  its  Third  Reading,  under  which,  sub- 
sequently, fully  one- third  of  the  Nationalist  members 
charged  in  its  columns  were  put  into  prison,  there  were  very 
few  English  people  outside  the  Radical  faction  who  did  not 
think  that  Ireland  had  got  no  more  than  her  deserts. 

It  was,  in  the  denouement  of  the  series  of  events,  following 
upon  the  publication  of  Mr.  Parnell's  supposed  letter,  that 
Mr.  Labouchere  played  such  an  important  part,  and,  as  it 
was  nearly  two  years  before  the  mystery  was  completely 


BALFOUR'S  COERCION  POLICY  361 

unravelled,  the  story  of  the  forged  letter  must  now  be  left, 
so  as  to  take  up  in  chronological  order  the  second  event  of 
1887  in  which  Mr.  Labouchere  was  vitally  concerned. 

Mr.  Labouchere  kept  himself  well  in  touch  with  what  was 
going  on  in  Ireland,  and  the  following  detailed  letter  that 
he  received  from  Mr.  T.  M.  Healy  towards  the  end  of  1886, 
gave  him  a  vivid  picture  of  the  state  of  things  there  during 
the  first  half  year  of  the  Conservative  Government,  and 
assisted  him  much  in  the  line  of  policy  he  consistently  fol- 
lowed then  and  throughout  the  ensuing  years: 

The  country  is  really  perfectly  quiet,  and  the  misfortune  is 
that  the  Tories  are  reaping  the  benefit  of  Gladstone's  policy,  and 
will,  of  course,  claim  the  credit  for  their  "resolute  Government." 
Moreover,  they  are  putting  all  kinds  of  pressure  on  the  landlords 
to  grant  abatements.  Duller  is  Soudanizing  Kerry  &  la  Gordon, 
and  giving  the  slave-drivers  no  quarter,  so  that  with  the  stoppage 
of  evictions  there,  moonlighting  is  coming  to  an  end  and  the 
people  believe  that  Buller  won't  let  them  be  turned  out  of  their 
cabins.  He  has  a  good  man  with  him  as  Sec. — Col.  Turner — who 
was  aide  to  Aberdeen  during  the  late  Viceroyalty.  Turner  is  a 
staunch  Radical  and  Home  Ruler  who  sympathizes  with  the  poor, 
and  we  know  very  well  that  the  brake  has  been  put  on  against  the 
local  Bimbashis.  They  are  cursing  Buller  heartily,  and  yester- 
day he  had  to  issue  an  official  contradiction  of  the  undoubted 
truth  that  he  is  obstructing  evictions  by  refusing  police.  There 
are  more  ways  of  killing  a  dog  than  choking  him  with  butter. 
How  they  would  storm  against  Liberals  if  any  such  officer  were 
sent  to  Kerry  to  override  the  law,  and  how  they  denounced  Morley 
for  exercising  the  dispensing  power,  because  of  a  few  sympathetic 
sentences.  What  I  am  afraid  of  in  all  this  is  that  the  tenants 
nowhere  are  getting  a  clear  receipt,  and  that  they  will  afterwards 
be  pressed  for  the  balances  unless  there  is  an  Arrears  Act.  Pro- 
bably the  Tories  meditate  muddling  away  the  rest  of  the  Church 
surplus  in  benefactions  to  the  landlords  to  recompense  their 
benevolence.  Of  course  only  the  September  rents  are  due  yet, 
and  September  and  March  are  much  less  frequent  gale  months 
with  us  than  November  and  May.  The  November  rents  will  be 


362  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

soon  demanded,  and  then  we  shall  really  know  what  the  land- 
lords will  do.  I  think  they  will  surrender,  for  if  they  don't 
they  won't  be  paid.  Every  one  of  them  is  sick  of  the  fight.  Their 
retainers  and  bailiffs  who  made  a  profit  out  of  evictions,  and  the 
attorneys  who  promoted  them  for  the  costs,  have  not  been  paid 
for  a  long  time  as  they  used  long  ago,  and  like  a  stranded  vessel 
on  the  rocks  it  is  only  a  question  of  the  fierceness  of  the  gale  how 
soon  the  entire  system  will  go  to  pieces.  They  were  in  much 
better  blood  for  fighting  in  '81  and  what  have  those  of  them  got 
who  stood  out?  Desolate  farms  that  no  one  will  touch,  while  the 
sight  of  emergency  occupants  no  longer  terrifies  the  tenants,  who 
know  that  they  are  costing  the  master  three  times  the  rent  and 
that  their  labours  are  as  profitless  as  a  locust's.  These  fellows 
are  the  riffraff  of  the  towns  who  idle  away  their  time  in  the  next 
public-house  or  play  cards  with  the  police  sent  to  protect  them. 
They  burn  everything  that  will  light  for  firing,  and  their  occupa- 
tion of  the  premises  is  about  as  husbandman-like  as  that  of  a  party 
of  Uhlans.  Such  is  the  prospect  for  the  gentry  who  refuse  abate- 
ments, and  as  they  know  the  people  have  not  got  money,  I 
believe  they  will  make  a  virtue  of  necessity.  Then  the  Govern- 
ment are  known  to  be  against  them,  and  they  cannot  appeal  from  . 
their  own  friends  to  the  Liberals,  so  what  are  they  to  do?  They 
distrust  Churchill  completely,  and  believe  he  is  capable  of  any- 
thing. If,  however,  they  hold  out  we  shall  have  warm  work. 
I  have  refrained  from  addressing  agrarian  meetings  so  far,  though 
Dillon  and  O'Brien  have  gone  on  the  warpath,  because  it  is  not 
clear  to  me  yet  what  is  the  best  line  to  take,  and  besides  I  think 
Parnell  should  give  the  note,  so  that  nobody  may  get  above 
concert  pitch.  What  Parnell's  views  are  I  don't  know,  and  he 
is  the  man  on  the  horse.  The  consciousness  of  the  people  that 
they  have  Gladstone  on  their  side  would  in  any  case,  I  think,  take 
all  the  uglier  sting  out  of  the  agitation,  now  that  they  feel  a 
settlement  to  be  only  a  matter  of  time.  It  is  very  hard  for  any  one 
to  advise  them  when  the  responsibility  is  directly  on  Parnell, 
but  if  he  intervened  popular  opinion  would  blaze  like  a  prairie 
fire. 

Thanks  for  your  enquiry  about  my  return  to  the  House. 
There  are  now  three  Irish  vacancies,  but  I  don't  feel  anxious  to 
go  in  now  that  I  am  out  of  the  hurly-burly.  It  is  a  heavy  mone- 


BALFOUR'S  COERCION  POLICY  363 

tary  loss  to  me,  still,  if  it  seemed  my  duty,  I  would  stand  again. 
O  'Brien  hates  Parliament  and  vows  he  won't  go  back,  but  if  he 
would  consent  so  should  I.  The  English  have  no  idea  what  a 
beastly  nuisance  it  is,  giving  up  your  work  in  order  to  live  in 
London,  and  then  to  be  blackguarded  as  hirelings  and  assassins 
for  our  pains.  I  cannot  think  that  there  is  much  chance  of  turn- 
ing out  Randolph  for  a  long  time  to  come.  Even  if  we  could  win 
over  Chamberlain,  he  has  few  followers,  and  Hartington  could  still 
give  the  Ministry  a  majority.  I  think  the  pair  of  them  are  trying 
to  kill  Gladstone,  and  that  this  is  quite  as  much  a  purpose  of  their 
policy  as  to  prevent  Home  Rule.  I  feel  sure  that  no  modifications 
of  the  late  Bill  that  we  could  agree  to  would  induce  either  of  them 
to  come  over. 

In  a  Parliamentary  sense  Mr.  Gladstone  is  a  better  life  than 
Hartington,  as  when  the  Duke  of  Devonshire  dies  his  influence 
will  abate,  and  his  followers  in  the  House  cannot  be  so  well  kept 
together.  Joseph  and  he  hate  each  other  too  much  to  agree  on 
anything  else  than  disagreeing  with  Gladstone,  so  that  I  cannot 
see  any  land  ahead  just  yet.  I  fear  there  is  nothing  for  it  but 
to  trust  to  the  chapter  of  accidents.  Cloture  cannot,  if  carried, 
do  us  much  harm.  If  used  to  promote  coercion  then  you  will 
have  outrages  and,  for  aught  I  know,  dynamite  once  more  in  the 
ascendant,  so  that  while  they  may  get  rid  of  the  pain  in  one  part 
of  the  system  the  disease  will  break  out  somewhere  else.  Every 
one  here  wants  peace,  and  the  wisdom  of  Gladstone's  policy 
is  more  manifest  to  me  every  day.  There  is  an  entire  change  in 
the  temper  of  the  people,  and  it  would  even  take  some  pretty 
rough  Toryism  to  make  them  take  to  their  old  ways  again. 

If  the  present  Government  were  wise  they  would  take  ad- 
vantage of  this  frame  of  mind,  but  there  is  little  prospect  of 
their  doing  so. 

In  the  monster  demonstration  which  took  place  in  Hyde 
Park,  after  the  reading  of  the  Coercion  Bill  for  the  first  time, 
Mr.  Labouchere  had  been  one  of  the  group  of  eloquent 
orators,  including  Mr.  Michael  Davitt,  Mr.  Sexton,  Mr. 
Hunter,  and  Professor  James  Stuart,  who,  from  a  long  semi- 
circle of  pavilions,  had  led  upwards  of  a  quarter  million 


364  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

demonstrators,  poured  out  from  the  Radical  Clubs  and 
Associations  of  London,  in  protest  against  the  tyrannical 
methods  contemplated  by  the  Government.  A  short  extract 
from  the  speech  of  Mr.  Baggallay,  made  in  the  House  of 
Commons  on  April  14,  gives  an  interesting  little  picture  of 
Mr.  Labouchere  on  the  occasion  of  the  demonstration: 
"I  see  the  member  for  Northampton  in  his  place,"  he  said; 
"I  am  glad  to  see  him  back  again  after  his  short  holiday, 
a  holiday  which  I  was  sorry  to  see  that  he  himself  had  cut 
short  by  unnecessarily  making  his  appearance  on  a  waggon 
in  Hyde  Park.  May  I  be  allowed  to  tell  him  that  I  was  in 
Hyde  Park  also,  although  I  was  not  in  a  waggon.  I  am 
prepared  to  admit  that  the  crowd  there  was  orderly.  It  has 
been  asserted  that  there  were  a  great  many  rowdies  present. 
No  doubt  there  were,  but,  for  a  Bank  holiday,  and  for  Hyde 
Park  on  a  fine  day,  I  think  the  congregation  assembled  there 
was  fairly  respectable.  But,  sir,  what  did  they  go  there  for? 
A  great  many  were  out  for  a  holiday,  but  I  believe  that  a 
very  large  number  went  there  in  order  to  see  the  leader  of  the 
Liberal  party,  or  rather  the  real  leader  of  the  Radical  party. 
I  was  asked  over  and  over  again,  'Where 's  Labby?' 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  point  of  attraction  was  the 
platform  at  which  the  member  for  Northampton  presided. 
The  language  Mr.  Labouchere  used  in  reference  to  this 
Coercion  Bill  was  not  perhaps  quite  so  moderate  as  it  might 
have  been.  He  told  his  audience  that  the  policy  of  the 
Government  was  like  the  ruffianism  of  Bill  Sikes,  and  he 
added  that  if  the  Bill  became  law  he  hoped  Irishmen  would 
resist  it."  (Mr.  Labouchere:  "Hear,  Hear!")  "I  do 
not  know  if  Mr.  Labouchere  is  prepared  to  repeat  those  words 
in  the  House — "  (Mr.  Labouchere:  "Most  unquestion- 
ably I  repeat  them.) " l  And  so  on. 

The  protest  had,  of  course,  nothing  but  a  moral  value, 
minimised  as  much  as  possible  by  a  slashing  leading  article 
in  the  Times,  followed  by  a  double  dose  of  "Parnellism  and 

1  Hansard,  April  14,  1887,  vol.  313. 


BALFOUR'S  COERCION  POLICY  365 

Crime. "  But,  in  the  September  of  that  year,  Mr.  Labou- 
chere,  in  company  with  four  other  members  of  Parliament 
(Mr.  T.  E.  Ellis,  Mr.  Brunner,  Mr.  Dillon,  and  Mr.  John 
O'Connor),  went  over  to  Ireland,  in  order  to  address  the 
historic  meeting  at  Michelstown. 

Everybody  knows  the  outline  of  what  occurred — how  the 
police,  escorting  a  Government  reporter,  tried  to  force  a 
passage  through  a  hostile  crowd  to  the  speaker's  platform, 
and  how  they  were  eventually  driven  back  into  their  barracks, 
through  the  windows  of  which  they  fired  at  random,  killing 
three  men  and  mortally  wounding  two  others.  The  meet- 
ing occurred  on  September  9,  and  on  the  I2th  the  matter  was 
discussed  during  the  debate  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
Mr.  Balfour  pronounced  instant  and  peremptory  judgment, 
although  his  information  on  the  subject  must  have  been 
obtained  with  incredible  rapidity. l  He  told  the  House  that 
he  was  of  opinion,  "looking  at  the  matter  in  the  most  impar- 
tial spirit,  that  the  police  were  in  no  way  to  blame,  and  that 
no  responsibility  rested  upon  any  one  except  upon  those  who 
convened  the  meeting  under  circumstances  which  they  knew 
would  lead  to  excitement  and  might  lead  to  outrage."3 
Mr.  Labouchere,  following  Sir  William  Harcourt  and  Mr. 
Balfour,  made  a  characteristic  speech,  in  the  course  of  which 
he  gave  an  inimitable  account  of  what  actually  did  happen 
at  Michelstown. 

"Now,  sir,"  he  said,  "I  was  there.  I  was  in  a  position 
which  enabled  me  to  see  very  clearly  what  took  place.  I 
am  not  a  novice  in  these  matters.  I  have  been  in  a  great 
many  emeutes  on  the  continent.  I  have  been  a  reporter  in 
some  cases,  and  I  have  not  only  been  in  a  position  to  see,  but 
I  have  also  been  in  the  habit  of  chronicling  what  I  did  see. 
.  .  .  We  went  down,  and  the  train  arrived  at  Fermoy. 
This  is  about  fifteen  miles  from  Michelstown,  and  when  we 
were  within  a  mile  of  the  latter  place,  we  were  met  by  a 

1  Morley,  Life  of  Gladstone,  vol.  iii. 

•  Hansard,  September  12,  1887,  vol.  321. 


366  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

procession  with  flags  and  trumpets,  and  a  certain  crowd 
accompanying  it.  ...  We  entered  the  town  with  this 
procession,  and  pulled  up  in  the  market-place.  Michelstown 
is  a  very  small  provincial  town  with  very  wide  streets  and 
few  of  them.  In  the  midst  of  the  town  there  is  this  market- 
place, which  is  perhaps  as  large  as  Trafalgar  Square.  The 
market-place  slopes,  and  at  the  top,  is  the  main  street  of  the 
village,  and — I  ask  the  House  to  remember  this — there  are 
two  police  barracks.  One  is  the  permanent  police  station 
.  .  .  and  the  other  a  temporary  police  station,  used  by  the 
police  on  this  occasion,  and  faces  the  market-place.  When 
we  arrived  there  we  got  into  a  brake,  which  formed  one 
part  of  the  procession.  This  brake  was  mainly  tenanted  by 
priests,  the  Mayors  of  Cork  and  Clonmel,  and  a  few  other 
gentlemen.  Mr.  M'Carthy,  a  parish  priest  of  the  neighbour- 
hood, was  appointed  chairman,  and  the  crowd  naturally 
gathered  around.  Mr.  Dillon  said  to  me :  '  Let  us  cut  this 
as  short  as  possible:  they  will  send  the  police  and  military 
into  the  town.  They  will  attempt  something,  and  something 
may  occur  if  we  go  on  long.  I  suggest  we  say  a  few  words 
and  ask  the  crowd  to  disperse. '  I  at  once  assented.  Dillon 
then  got  up  on  the  front  side  of  the  brake  to  say  a  few  words, 
and  at  that  time,  or  perhaps  a  few  minutes  before,  I  saw  a 
body  of  police  drawn  up  in  a  line  in  the  lower  part  of  the 
market-place.  They  had  a  reporter  with  them,  and  they 
pushed  their  way  to  within  a  short  distance  of  the  platform. 
.  .  .  They  could  get  no  further.  The  people  were  so  tightly 
packed.  I  will  give  an  instance  of  this.  When  we  got 
there  we  got  out  of  our  carriage,  and  we  were  all  going  on  to 
the  brake,  which  was,  I  suppose,  five  yards  away.  I  was 
delayed  a  moment,  and  I  was  delayed  at  least  two  moments 
trying  to  get  through  these  five  yards,  the  people  being  so 
crowded  that  it  was  almost  impossible  to  push  through  them. 
How  then  was  it  possible  for  the  police,  three  abreast,  with- 
out great  violence,  to  push  their  way  through  such  a  dense 
mass  as  this?  Our  brake  was  at  the  top  of  the  market-place, 


BALFOUR'S  COERCION  POLICY  367 

the  people  were  all  in  front.  Why  on  earth  did  not  the 
reporter  go  to  the  outside  of  the  meeting,  and  down  the 
other  side?  He  could  easily  have  got  in  that  way,  and  we 
should  have  been  glad  to  welcome  him  tnere.  But  the 
police  deliberately  tried  to  force  their  way  right  in  front 
where  the  people  were  wedged  in  as  much  as  possible.  I 
then  saw  these  dozen  policemen,  with  the  reporter  in  their 
midst,  stop.  I  supposed  then  they  were  satisfied  and  saw 
they  could  get  no  further.  Dillon  made  one  or  two  observa- 
tions, and  then  the  police  fell  back,  and  I  thought  perhaps 
they  were  going  round.  Let  me  observe  we  did  not  see  the 
Resident  Magistrate  at  all.  If  the  Resident  Magistrate  had 
shown  himself,  and  said  he  wanted  the  reporter  to  pass,  one 
would  have  let  him  pass.  The  difficulty  was  that  the  re- 
porter did  not  come  alone,  but  with  this  body  of  police. 
Dillon  went  on  speaking,  and  the  horsemen — not  this  wonder- 
ful regiment  I  see  mentioned  in  the  Times,  but  some  twenty 
horsemen — closed  round  outside  the  meeting  in  order  to 
hear.  Suddenly,  after  the  advance  guard  had  fallen  back, 
and  joined  the  other  police,  they  (the  police)  all  rushed  for- 
ward. I  am  told  they  came  to  where  these  horsemen  were, 
and  one  of  the  policemen  drew  his  sword,  and  wounded  one 
of  the  horses.  I  believe  Mr.  Brunner  saw  this  done.  Im- 
mediately there  was  a  scrimmage.  .  .  .  The  police 
commenced  and  continued  it.  The  next  thing  that  happened 
was  that  the  police  ran  away.  Captain  Seagrove  may  have 
been  amongst  them,  but  it  appears  he  deserted  them  on  this 
occasion,  and  went  to  a  neighbouring  inn  on  the  right  of 
the  market-place ....  The  police  ran  into  the  barracks. 
.  .  .  Brunner  and  Ellis  got  on  the  brake,  and  joined  the 
Mayor  of  Cork  in  urging  the  people  to  clear  the  streets  for 
fear  of  further  bloodshed,  and  I  remained  on  the  brake,  be- 
cause I  was  anxious  to  see  what  would  take  place."  He 
continued  his  speech,  urging  with  great  ability  the  futility 
of  pursuing  in  Ireland  such  tactics,  which  amounted  to 
nothing  in  the  world  but  the  forcing  upon  a  weaker  country 


368  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

the  tyranny  of  a  stronger.  "The  Chief  Secretary  tells  us, " 
he  continued,  "that,  by  these  means,  he  hopes  to  create  a 
Union  between  England  and  Ireland.  What  sort  of  a 
Union  does  he  expect  to  create?  Does  he  expect  to  create 
a  Union  of  hearts  and  affections?  Does  he  hope  to  create 
an  affection  for  the  English  Government?  I  am  happy  to 
see  that  in  Ireland  the  people  are  making  a  wide  distinction 
between  the  people  of  England  and  the  Government  of 
England.  They  know  their  troubles  are  only  temporary, 
that  a  new  alliance  exists  between  the  democracies  of  England 
and  Ireland,  and  that  the  classes  will  not  be  able  to  hold  their 
own  against  such  an  alliance.  I  hold  that  the  right  hon. 
gentleman  (Mr.  Balfour)  is  indirectly  responsible  for  what 
has  occurred  at  Michelstown,  and  that  those  who  are 
directly  responsible  are  R.  M.  Seagrove  and  Inspector 
Brownrigg.  I  accuse  these  men  of  gross  and  deliberate 
murder."1 

After  Mr.  Labouchere  sat  down,  there  was  really  very 
little  to  be  said  on  the  other  side.  Lord  Randolph  Churchill, 
however,  endeavoured  to  do  his  duty  by  his  party,  and 
commented  thus  on  Labouchere's  speech,  craftily  criticising 
its  style  and  ignoring  its  substance:  "And  then,  Sir,  we  had 
the  statement  of  the  member  for  Northampton,  which  seems 
to  me  to  resemble  in  its  nature  certain  newspapers  which  are 
now  current,  and,  to  some  extent,  popular  in  the  metropolis, 
which  convey  their  news  to  the  public  in  paragraphs.  The 
statement  of  the  hon.  gentleman  did  not  seem  to  me  to  be 
altogether  connected.  It  was  really  a  series  of  paragraphs, 
which  succeeded  each  other  without  much  connection  as 
far  as  I  could  make  out.  I  put  aside  the  statement  of  the 
hon.  member  for  Northampton,  because  I  have  difficulty 
in  regarding  him  as  altogether  serious  in  this  matter.  "2 

It  is  difficult  to  see  why  Lord  Randolph  Churchill  did  not 
regard  Mr.  Labouchere's  statement  on  the  subject  as  serious. 
Had  he  been  commenting  on  Mr.  Balfour's  speech  on  the 

1  Hansard,  September  12,  1887,  vol.  321.  '  Ibid. 


BALFOUR'S  COERCION  POLICY  369 

occasion,  one  might  have  understood  a  certain  amount  of 
scepticism  as  to  the  speaker's  good  faith. 

In  the  following  February  Mr.  Labouchere,  in  a  speech 
on  Mr.  Parnell's  amendment  in  answer  to  the  Address  from 
the  Throne,  referred  again  to  Mr.  Balfour's  airy  dismissal  of 
any  serious  consideration  of  the  Michelstown  affray:  "  What 
the  Chief  Secretary  had  stated  in  the  House  about  the  matter 
was  absolutely  incorrect.  He  had  always  thought  that  the 
right  hon.  gentleman  would  be  especially  careful  in  matters 
of  evidence,  for,  as  a  philosopher,  he  was  his  (Labouchere's) 
favourite  philosopher.  He  had  sat  at  the  feet  of  that  Ga- 
maliel, he  had  read  his  Defence  of  Philosophic  Doubt,  until 
he  had  almost  doubted  of  his  own  existence.  Yet,  when  the 
right  hon.  gentleman  became  Irish  Chief  Secretary,  he  forgot 
all  his  philosophy.  The  reason  was  that  there  were  exigencies 
required  of  an  Irish  Secretary  that  were  not  to  be  found  in 
the  calm  fields  of  philosophy.  It  was  a  melancholy  thing 
for  a  philosopher  to  be  plunged  by  the  exigencies  of  his 
position  into  matters  like  this — to  have  vile  instruments  to 
carry  out  his  orders,  and  to  believe  them  or  rather  to  pretend 
to  believe  them.  .  .  .  "* 

The  note  of  persiflage  contained  in  all  Labouchere's 
speeches  on  the  Michelstown  affair  may  have  deceived  his 
hearers  as  to  the  profoundness  of  his  feelings  of  indignation, 
but  his  measured,  well-considered  utterances  in  Truth  were 
for  all  who  read  them  a  sufficient  guarantee  of  his  good  faith. 
Immediately  after  the  affray,  he  wrote  thus  of  the  head  of  the 
constabulary  force  in  Co.  Cork:  "I  came  across  a  person  of 
the  name  of  Brownrigg  the  other  day.  The  ferocity,  the 
insolence,  the  brutality  of  this  man  never  were  exceeded 
and  rarely  equalled  by  Cossack  or  Uhlan  in  a  country  occu- 
pied by  Russian  or  German.  I  strongly  recommend  him 
for  promotion.  He  is  a  man  after  the  heart  of  our  Tory 
despots,  for  he  seemed  to  me  to  unite  in  his  person  every 
characteristic  that  goes  to  make  up  an  official  ruffian, 

1  Hansard,  February  14,  1888,  vol.  322. 


370  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

armed  with  a  little  brief  authority.  On  this  man  the 
responsibility  of  the  Michelstown  murders  rests.  He  caused 
them,  either  deliberately,  or  from  stupidity  and  brutality 
combined.  If  he  has  furnished  Mr.  Balfour  with  an  account 
of  what  took  place  there,  he  adds  to  his  other  virtues  the 
capacity  of  being  one  of  the  best  liars  that  the  world  has 
ever  produced,  for  the  statement  of  Mr.  Balfour  in  the 
House  of  Commons  of  the  Michelstown  affair,  from  '  official 
information,'  is  one  long  tissue  of  deliberate  falsehoods."1 

At  the  inquest  which  was  held  upon  the  victims,  the  jury 
returned  a  verdict  of  wilful  murder  against  the  chief  police 
officer  and  five  of  his  men.  Truth  pronounced  as  follows 
upon  the  inquest:  "Immediately  after  the  Michelstown 
meeting  I  had  occasion  to  call  attention  to  the  conduct  of 
Brownrigg,  the  chief  of  the  constabulary  there.  This 
ruffian  has  given  evidence,  and  his  evidence  is  one  long  tissue 
of  lies,  so  impudent  that  Mr.  Irwin,  the  District  Police 
Inspector,  has  borne  testimony  against  him.  When  Mr. 
Irwin  stated  what  the  nature  of  his  evidence  must  be,  Brown- 
rigg, it  would  appear,  called  his  men  together  and  tried  to 
drill  them  into  perjury,  in  order  to  obtain  confirmation  of 
his  mendacity.  I  am  not  surprised  at  anything  which  this 
man  may  do,  for  I  found  him  vain,  irascible,  insolent,  and 
muddleheaded  beyond  all  conception." 

Mr.  Labouchere's  article,  called  "The  Michelstown  Mur- 
ders, "  giving  in  more  detail  than  he  had  been  able  to  do  in 
the  House,  the  real  facts  of  the  affray,  is  a  masterpiece  of 
judicial  summing  up  It  is  too  long  to  quote  in  full,  but  the 
following  extract  will  show  how  close  was  his  reasoning,  and 
how  unanswerable  his  arguments : 

Three  men  were  killed,  and  two  were  wounded.  Two  of  the 
men  killed  received  each  two  bullets.  This  proves  two  things: 
i.  That  the  police  deliberately  aimed.  2.  That  there  could  not 
have  been  a  crowd.  Never  yet  was  a  crowd  fired  into,  and,  of 

1  Truth,  September  15,  1887. 


BALFOUR'S  COERCION  POLICY  371 

the  three  men  killed  by  the  discharge,  two  each  be  struck  twice. 
Any  one  can  see  that  this  is  mathematically  so  improbable  as  to 
be  impossible. 

Station  No.  i  is  a  house  with  an  iron  door,  and  iron  shutters 
to  the  windows.  Even  if  it  had  been  attacked,  an  unarmed  crowd 
could  not  have  got  into  it;  all  the  more  as  there  were  military 
within  call  ready  to  act,  and  Captain  Seagrove  was  not  in  the 
station,  and  consequently  could  have  at  once  called  up  the 
soldiers.  It  is  admitted  that  there  are  160  panes  of  glass  in 
the  windows,  and  that  only  six  of  these  panes  were  broken 
by  stones.  The  police  therefore  were  not  in  dangei  of  their  lives, 
nor  in  any  danger. l 

The  verdict  of  the  inquest  was  afterwards  quashed  (Feb. 
10,  1888)  in  the  Queen's  Bench  on  the  ground  that  the 
coroner  had  perpetrated  certain  irregularities  of  form,  and, 
as  Lord  Morley  remarks,  "the  slaughter  of  the  three  men  was 
finally  left  just  as  if  it  had  been  the  slaughter  of  three  dogs." 
No  other  incident  of  Irish  administration  stirred  deeper 
feelings  of  disgust  in  Ireland,  or  of  misgiving  and  indignation 
in  England.*  Meanwhile  the  Times  articles  "Parnellism 
and  Crime"  seemed  to  have  been  forgotten,  except  by  Mr. 
Labouchere,  who  had  in  Truth  chaffingly  suggested  to  the 
Times  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Brownrigg  to  write  a  few 
instalments  of  the  sensational  serial  pamphlet.  The  poison, 
however,  had  worked,  and  goodwill  towards  Ireland  had 
nearly  died  in  English  breasts.  Parnell  had  declared  in  the 
House  of  Commons  on  the  day  of  its  publication  that  the 
facsimile  letter  was  a  clumsy  fabrication.  "Politics  are 
come  to  a  pretty  pass,"  he  said,  "in  this  country  when  a 
leader  of  a  party  of  eighty-six  members  has  to  stand  up  at 
ten  minutes  past  one  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  order  to 
defend  himself  from  an  anonymous  fabrication  such  as  that 
which  is  contained  in  the  Times  of  this  morning.  "3 

1  Truth,  September  22,  1887. 

•  Morley,  Life  of  Gladstone,  vol.  iii. 

*  Hansard,  April  18,  1887,  vol.  313. 


372  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

Nobody  except  his  Radical  friends  believed  him,  and  the 
affair  would  probably  have  sunk  into  oblivion  if  a  former 
member  of  the  party,  a  Mr.  F.  H.  O'Donnell,  had  not,  after 
mature  reflection,  conceived  that  he  had  been  libelled  in 
the  famous  articles.  In  the  summer  of  1888  he  prosecuted 
the  Times  for  damages,  and  lost  his  case,  for,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  Mr.  O'Donnell  had  not  been  mentioned  in  the  articles, 
and  it  almost  appeared  that  something  like  a  guilty  con- 
science had  prompted  him  to  bring  the  action.  But  the 
prosecuting  counsel's  method  of  presenting  the  case  not  only 
compelled  Sir  Richard  Webster  to  reproduce  and  exhaustively 
comment  upon  the  "Parnellism  and  Crime"  articles,  but 
furnished  him  with  the  opportunity  of  startling  London  and 
the  world  with  a  long  series  of  other  letters,  some  of  them 
more  damning  even  than  the  facsimile  letter,  five  purporting 
to  be  from  Pat.  Egan,  the  former  treasurer  of  the  Land 
League,  addressed  to  various  agitators  and  felons  including 
James  Carey,  the  informer,  and  three  supposed  to  be  from 
Parnell.  It  is  only  necessary  to  this  narrative  to  quote  one 
which  was  read  out  on  July  4,  1888,  by  the  Attorney-General 
in  his  address  to  the  jury.  It  ran  as  follows : 

9/1/82. 

DEAR  E., — What  are  these  fellows  waiting  for?  This  inaction 
is  inexcusable,  our  best  men  are  in  prison  and  nothing  is  being 
done.  Let  there  be  an  end  of  this  hesitancy.  Prompt  action  is 
called  for.  You  undertook  to  make  it  hot  for  old  Forster  and  Co. 
Let  us  have  some  evidence  of  your  power  to  do  so.  My  health 
is  good,  thanks. — Yours  very  truly, 

CHAS.  S.  PARNELL. 

"Dear  E."  meant  Patrick  Egan.  In  January,  four 
months  before  the  Phoenix  Park  murders,  Mr.  Parnell  was 
in  Kilmainham  Prison.  Well  might  the  Attorney-General 
say,  as  he  solemnly  read  out  the  letter  in  Court:  "If  it 
was  signed  by  Mr.  Parnell,  I  need  not  comment  upon  it." 


BALFOUR'S  COERCION  POLICY  373 

He  also  made  the  announcement  that  the  "facsimile  letter, " 
as  the  first  one  published  in  the  Times  has  always  been  called, 
as  well  as  the  ones  he  had  produced  in  Court  that  day,  had 
been  for  some  time  in  the  possession  of  the  Times.  Pre- 
sumably the  Times  had  kept  them  in  the  hopes  that  the 
Irish  leaders  would  sooner  or  later  bring  an  action  for  libel 
against  the  paper,  when  they  would  triumphantly  have 
produced  the  letters  and  so  confounded  the  whole  party. 
As  it  turned  out,  their  production  at  that  moment  rather 
resembled  the  killing  of  a  fly  with  a  sledge-hammer,  for  Mr. 
O'Donnell's  case  was  one  of  such  palpable  insignificance. 
An  important  reason  may  be  mentioned  here,  for  explaining 
what  may  seem  to  be  an  extraordinary  lack  of  initiative  on 
Mr.  Parnell's  part.  He  had  not  been  willing  to  prosecute 
the  Times  because  he  was  firmly  convinced  that  Captain 
O'Shea  had  been  concerned  in  the  production  of  the  letters, 
and,  to  add  to  his  unwillingness,  his  friends  in  England  had 
pointed  out  to  him  the  immense  improbability  of  a  jury  of 
twelve  Middlesex  men,  being,  at  that  moment,  sufficiently 
without  racial  prejudice,  to  pronounce  a  verdict  in  his 
favour.  After  the  Attorney-General's  declaration  that  the 
Times  would  retract  nothing,  and  the  implied  challenge  in 
his  admission  that,  if  false,  no  grosser  libels  were  ever 
written,  Mr.  Parnell  took  action.  On  the  day  of  the  delivery 
of  the  verdict  in  the  case  of  O  'Donnell  v.  Walter,  he  formally 
denied  the  authenticity  of  the  letters,  and  asked  for  a  Select 
Committee  of  the  House  to  enquire  into  the  matter.  His 
request  was  refused,  but  finally  it  was  suggested  from  the 
Treasury  Bench  that  the  enquiry  should  be  entrusted  to  a 
Commission  of  Judges  appointed  by  Act  of  Parliament.  A 
Bill  embodying  this  suggestion  was  read  for  the  second  time 
on  July  24,  and  the  names  of  the  Commissioners  were  added 
in  the  Committee  stage.  Sir  James  Hannen  was  chosen  as 
President  of  the  Commission,  and  with  him  were  associated 
Sir  Charles  Day,  an  Orangeman,  and  Sir  Archibald  Levin 
Smith.  Mr.  H.  Cunynghame,  a  junior  barrister  (now  Sir 


374  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

Henry  Cunynghame),  was    appointed    Secretary   to    the 
Commission. x 

Mr.  Labouchere  had,  of  course,  scented  in  the  whole 
business  a  chapter  of  chroniques  scandaleuses  after  his  own 
heart.  He  set  to  work  to  study  it  at  once  con  amore,  and 
very  soon  came  to  the  conclusion  that  all  the  letters  had  been 
forged  by  one  Richard  Pigott,  the  story  of  whose  chequered 
career  was  soon  to  become  the  property  of  a  marvelling 
public.  "Immediately  on  the  Egan  letters  being  produced 
in  the  O'Donnell  v.  Walter  case,"  he  writes  in  his  own 
account  of  the  affair,  "Mr.  Egan  telegraphed  to  me  that  he 
was  sending  over  Carey's  letters  to  him.  (Mr.  Egan  was 
then  in  America.)  These  letters  followed.  They  referred 
to  a  municipal  election,  and,  being  written  at  the  same  time 
as  a  forged  letter  of  Mr.  Egan  to  Carey,  they  proved  con- 
clusively that  the  latter  could  not  be  genuine.  Whilst  the 
discussion  was  taking  place  in  Parliament  about  the  Royal 
Commission,  Mr.  Egan  again  telegraphed  that  he  had  been 
comparing  the  letters  ascribed  to  him  in  the  O'Donnell  trial 
with  the  drafts  of  certain  letters  which  he  had  written  to 
Pigott  about  the  purchase  of  the  Irishman,2  and  the  letters 
ascribed  to  Mr.  Parnell,  with  the  copies  of  two  letters  written 
by  that  gentleman  to  Pigott  in  relation  to  the  sale,  which 
copies  were  in  his  (Egan's)  possession.  He  said  that 
he  had  found  such  a  similarity  of  phrase  in  the  genuine 
letters  and  in  the  forged  letters  that  he  was  certain  that  the 
latter  were  fabricated  from  the  former.  An  emissary  soon 
after  came  over  with  the  Egan  drafts  and  with  Pigott 's 
letters  (one  of  which  contained  that  blessed  word  'hesi- 
tancy'), to  which  the  former  were  replies,  and  with  the 
copies  of  Mr.  Parnell's  letters.  One  of  the  drafts  had  been 

1  The  Counsel  for  the  Times  were  Sir  Richard  Webster,  the  Attorney- 
General,  Sir  Henry  James,  Mr.  Murphy,  Mr.  W.  Graham,  Mr.  Atkinson,  and 
Mr.  Ronan;  Sir  Charles  Russell  and  Mr.  Asquith,  M.P.,  appeared  for  Mr. 
Parnell. 

1  The  Irishman  was  a  Fenian  newspaper  owned  by  Pigott,  and  sold  by  him 
to  Parnell  in  1881. 


BALFOUR'S  COERCION  POLICY  375 

published  previously  as  a  part  of  a  correspondence  between 
Egan  and  Pigott  in  the  Freeman's  Journal,  and  the  copies 
of  Mr.  Parnell's  letters  were  in  the  handwriting  of  Mr.  Camp- 
bell.1 Now  it  was  utterly  impossible  that  the  similarities, 
amounting  in  one  case  to  three  consecutive  lines,  could  be  a 
mere  chance.  It  was,  therefore,  a  mathematical  certainty 
that  Pigott  had  forged  the  letters,  while  it  was  obvious  that 
Mr.  Egan's  drafts  were  genuine,  for  they  could  have  been  at 
once  disproved,  if  incorrect,  by  Pigott  producing,  at  the 
investigation,  the  original  of  them,  which,  it  was  to  be 
presumed,  he  had  in  his  possession.  I  showed  the  Carey 
letters  to  Mr.  Parnell  alone,  and  the  Egan  correspondence 
with  Pigott  to  Sir  Charles  Russell  and  Mr.  Parnell  alone, 
and  then  locked  them  up.  On  Mr.  George  Lewis  being 
retained,  I  handed  them  over  to  him,  and  he  proceeded  to 
get  up  Pigott's  'record, '  only  a  portion  of  which  came  before 
the  Court,  but  a  portion  amply  sufficient  to  show  that  he  had 
lived  for  years  on  blackmailing,  forgery,  and  treachery.  "a 

Mr.  Labouchere  then  went  off  to  Germany  for  his  summer 
holiday,  and,  while  abroad,  a  chance  conversation  revealed  to 
him  that  the  incriminating  letters  had  been  already  shown 
by  Mr.  Houston,  the  Secretary  of  the  Loyal  and  Patriotic 
Association,  to  Lord  Hartington.  Houston  was  therefore 
immediately  subpoenaed,  and  it  later  transpired  that  he  had 
offered  them  to  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  before  he  sold  them  to 
the  Times.  "Two  facts  were  consequently  certain,"  said 
Mr.  Labouchere.  "  Houston  had  sold  the  letters,  and  Pigott 
had  forged  them.  Although  we  were  ourselves  certain  of  the 
latter  fact,  it  was  possible  that,  as  we  had  only  the  drafts  of 
the  Egan  letters,  it  might  be  said  (as  indeed  it  was  said,  by 
Pigott  in  the  witness-box)  that  Egan  had  written  his  drafts 
from  the  Times  letters,  instead  of  the  Times  letters  having 
been  fabricated  from  the  Egan  letters. 

"About  the  middle  of  October,"  continued  Mr.  La- 
bouchere, "  Mr.  Egan  sent  over  here  a  trusty  emissary,  with 

1  Mr.  Parnell's  secretary.  »  Truth. 


376  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

orders  to  report  to  me,  and  to  see  whether  it  would  not  be 
possible  to  buy  of  Pigott  the  original  of  the  Egan  drafts,  for 
he  knew  his  man,  and  believed  (rightly)  that  he  would  have 
no  objection  to  sell  anything  that  he  possessed  for  a  consid- 
eration. I  sent  this  emissary  to  Kingstown,  where  Pigott 
was  residing.  The  emissary  told  him  that  Egan  wanted 
these  originals.  Pigott  declined  to  deal  with  the  emissary, 
and  said  that  he  must  be  put  in  communication  with  some 
one  whom  he  could  trust.  On  this  I  told  the  emissary  that 
Pigott  could  see  me  at  my  house  on  a  certain  evening.  I 
went  down  to  the  Commission  which  was  sitting  on  that 
day,  and  informed  Mr.  Parnell  and  Mr.  Lewis  of  what  had 
been  arranged.  It  was  agreed  that  they  should  both  be 
present." 

Mr.  Labouchere's  letter  to  Pigott  making  the  appoint- 
ment for  this  interview  has,  with  its  hint  to  come  "by 
the  underground, "  been  so  often  referred  to  that  it  is  worth 
while  giving  it  here  in  full: 

24  GROSVENOR  GARDENS,  S.  W.,  Oct.  25,  1888. 

DEAR  SIR, — I  shall  be  here  at  10  o'clock  to-morrow  morning, 
and  shall  be  happy  to  see  you  for  a  confidential  conversation, 
which,  as  you  say,  can  do  no  harm,  if  it  does  no  good.  I  will 
return  you  your  letter  when  you  come.  I  think  this  house  would 
be  the  best  place,  for  it  certainly  is  not  watched,  and  it  would  be  as 
easy  to  throw  off  any  one  coming  here  as  going  elsewhere.  Your 
best  plan  would  be,  I  should  think,  to  take  the  underground,  and 
get  out  at  Victoria  Station.  The  house  is  close  by. — Yours 
faithfully, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

It  may  be  mentioned  in  parenthesis  that  Mr.  Labouchere 
had  misdated  his  letter.  It  was  really  written,  as  was  proved 
by  the  postmark  on  the  envelope,  on  October  24,  and  the 
interview  took  place  on  that  evening  at  10  o'clock,  as  he 
changed  the  time  of  the  appointment  by  telegram. 

Both  Mr.  Labouchere  and  Pigott  were  very  well  aware 


BALFOUR'S  COERCION  POLICY  377 

that  24  Grosvenor  Gardens,  if  not  being  watched  at  the 
moment  when  the  above  letter  was  penned,  would  be  so  as 
soon  as  Pigott  was  inside  it,  for  the  unhappy  forger  was 
dogged  in  all  his  footsteps  by  the  Times  agents.  Mr. 
Labouchere  had,  however,  nothing  to  fear,  and  poor  Pigott 
had  very  little  to  lose,  and  a  vague  expectation  of  something 
to  gain.  The  upshot  of  the  interview  was  that,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Mr.  Parnell  and  Mr.  Lewis,  Pigott  confessed  that  he 
had  forged  the  letters  and  suggested  that  he  would  give  a 
full  confession,  and  write  to  the  Attorney-General  and  to  the 
Times  that  he  was  the  forger,  if  Mr.  Lewis  would  withdraw  his 
subpoena  and  let  him  go  to  Australia.  But  it  was  not 
Pigott's  confession  that  Mr.  Lewis  and  Mr.  Labouchere 
wanted.  It  was  the  originals  of  the  drafts  of  the  Egan 
letters.  Mr.  Parnell  and  Mr.  Labouchere  withdrew  to 
another  room,  leaving  Mr.  Lewis  to  do  what  he  could  with 
the  slippery  Richard.  "Soon,"  to  continue  the  narrative 
in  Mr.  Labouchere's  own  words,  "Mr.  Lewis  came  into  the 
dining-room,  and  said  to  me,  '  Pigott  wants  to  come  to  me 
to-morrow  and  give  me  a  full  statement  He  is  going  away 
and  wants  to  speak  to  you';  adding,  'Mind,  whatever  you 
do,  don't  give  him  any  money ;  if  you  do  he  will  bolt. '  I 
left  Mr.  Lewis  with  Mr.  Parnell,  and  went  back  to  Pigott. 

"  That  worthy  at  once  came  to  business,  and  said  that  the 
Times  had  promised  him  £5000  to  go  into  the  box,  and  asked 
what  I  would  give  for  him  not  to  do  so.  I  replied  that  I 
would  give  nothing,  but  that  Egan's  emissary  had  already 
told  him  that,  acting  for  Egan,  I  wanted  the  original  of  the 
Egan  drafts,  as  these  would  prove  the  forgery  up  to  the  hilt, 
and  that  if  he  had  them  and  they  were  satisfactory,  I  would 
pay  for  them  He  asked  whether  I  would  give  £5000  for 
them.  When  I  declined,  he  asked  whether  I  would  give 
£1000.  I  said  it  would  be  more  like  one  thousand  than  five, 
but  that  I  must  first  see  the  documents.  I  then  asked  whether 
the  signature  of  the  Parnell  letters,  which  is  at  the  top  of  a 
page,  was  forged,  or  whether  it  was  an  autograph  which  had 


378  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

fallen  into  his  hands,  and  he  had  written  the  letter  on  the 
other  side.  'Why  do  you  want  to  know  this?'  he  asked. 
'  Mere  curiosity, '  I  replied.  On  which  he  said  that  it  was 
forged.  He  then  left. " 

Nothing  definite  as  to  the  original  Egan  letters  was  ob- 
tained by  Mr.  Lewis  when  he  called  the  next  day,  and  neither 
did  he  obtain  the  promised  statement.  The  interview  with 
Messrs.  Labouchere,  Lewis,  and  Parnell  at  Grosvenor  Gar- 
dens, and  the  subsequent  private  one  with  Mr.  Lewis,  were 
reported  to  the  Times  agents  by  Pigott  with  a  fanciful  ac- 
count of  what  took  place  at  each.  He  shortly  afterwards 
returned  to  Ireland,  and  Mr.  Labouchere  continued  his 
efforts  to  procure  all  possible  evidence  on  behalf  of  his  Irish 
friends.  He  was  considerably  helped  by  his  acquaintances 
in  America,  who  were  able  to  furnish  him  with  invaluable 
details  and  scraps  of  knowledge  about  the  various  witnesses 
for  the  Times,  which  came  in  appositely  more  than  once  in 
Sir  Charles  Russell's  masterly  cross-examinations.  It  is 
interesting  to  notice,  in  perusing  many  of  the  curious  letters 
received  by  Mr.  Labouchere  at  this  period  from  Irish  patriots 
living  beyond  the  Atlantic  (what  Mr.  Labouchere  had  so 
often  heard  from  the  lips  of  Mr.  Parnell  himself),1  how  far 
from  popular  Parnell  was  with  most  of  them.  He  was  too 
meek  and  mild  for  them,  and  they  could  not  understand  his 
patience  under  injury  and  abuse.  In  one  of  these  letters 
occurs  the  following  anecdote  about  the  intrepid  Irish 
leader:  "I  want  to  tell  you,"  says  the  writer,  "something 
about  Parnell  in  1883 — ask  him:  two  men  called  on  him 
when  he  was  in  Cork  and  said  (recollect  the  two  were  extrem- 
ists), 'Mr.  Parnell,  unless  you  give  us  £1000  for  extreme 
measures  we  will  shoot  you  before  we  leave  Cork. '  Parnell 
simply  replied,  'Well,  I  certainly  have  a  choice,  for  which 
I  am  obliged — to  be  shot  now  or  to  be  hung  afterwards. 
I  prefer  the  former.  You  will  never  get  £1000  from  me  for 
the  purpose  you  mention.'  '  One  and  all  of  these  patriots, 

1  See  letters  to  Chamberlain  in  Chapter  IX. 


BALFOUR'S  COERCION  POLICY  379 

however,  at  this  crisis  of  Parnell's  career  were  determined  to 
uphold  him,  and  to  allow  whatever  grievances  they  had 
against  him  to  stand  over  until  after  his  political  character 
had  been  vindicated  in  the  eyes  of  the  hated  English. 

Mr.  Labouchere  remained  in  communication  with  Pigott 
throughout  the  winter.  Pigott  dangled  before  him  the 
possibility  of  further  important  communications,  and  on 
November  29  Mr.  Labouchere  wrote  to  him  as  follows : 

As  I  understand  the  position  it  is  this — Mr.  Lewis  holds  that 
we  can  prove  our  case  against  the  Times  in  regard  to  the  letters 
conclusively,  and  this,  you  will  remember,  Mr.  Parnell  told  you. 
We  prove  it  in  a  certain  way.  You  say  that  you  wish  to  be  kept 
out  of  it,  and  not  be  called  as  a  witness.  If  such  a  course  can 
strengthen  our  case,  and  prove  it  still  more  conclusively,  I  do 
not  see  why  it  should  not  be  adopted,  for  the  object  is  to  prove 
irrespective  of  individuals.  Evidently,  some  one  must  know 
how  you  propose  to  do  what  you  want,  and  what  you  say  you 
can  do.  If  you  like  to  confide  in  me,  I  will  tell  you  what  I  think, 
and,  if  I  agree  with  you,  it  will  be  then  time  for  you  either  to 
assent  or  dissent  to  Mr.  Parnell  or  Mr.  Lewis  being  informed. 
But  you  are  a  practical  man — so  am  I.  Mere  assertion,  neither 
you  nor  I  attach  much  importance  to,  without  documentary  or 
some  other  clear  confirmation. 

Pigott  answered  as  follows: 

ANDERTON'S  HOTEL, 
FLEET  STREET,  E.  C.,  Dec.  4,  1888. 

DEAR  SIR, — I  have  arrived  here,  and  write  a  line  to  ask  you  to 
make  an  appointment,  as  I  know  that  your  house  is  watched — 
as  is  also  Mr.  Lewis's  Office — and  as  I  am  "shadowed"  wherever 
I  go  outside  a  certain  limit,  perhaps  you  could  kindly  arrange 
that  we  should  meet  somewhere  else  to-morrow  afternoon  or 
Thursday,  or  in  fact  any  other  day  you  choose. — Faithfuly 
yours,  RD.  PIGGOTT. 

What  occurred  at  the  meeting  which  took  place  as 
the  result  of  the  above  correspondence  is  best  told  in  Mr. 


380  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

Labouchere's  own  words :  "  Pigott  came  about  ten  and  stayed 
till  one  A.M.  Again  he  explained  that  he  had  forged,  and 
gave  me  a  good  many  details  about  the  way  in  which  he  had 
done  it,  telling  me,  amongst  other  things,  that  he  had  given 
Houston  three  names  as  the  sources  of  the  letters,  two  of 
which  were  efforts  of  his  imagination,  and  the  third  a  real 
person.  He  seemed  rather  proud  of  his  skill,  and  by  encour- 
aging this  weakness  I  got  everything  out  of  him.  I  asked 
him  how  Houston  could  have  been  so  easily  fooled,  and 
whether  he  was  an  absolute  idiot?  He  replied  that  he  was 
clever  up  to  a  certain  point,  but  thought  himself  twice  as 
clever  as  he  was,  and  that  these  sort  of  persons  are  easily 
trapped.  In  this  I  agreed  with  him,  and  he  told  me  that 
Houston  had  told  him  that  he  wanted  letters,  because  it  was 
intended  to  publish  a  pamphlet,  and  that  the  letters  were  to 
be  held  in  reserve  to  be  sprung  upon  the  Court  if  there  was  an 
action  for  libel,  adding  that  such  an  action  would  be  certain 
not  to  be  brought.  Again  and  again,  with  weary  iteration, 
he  came  back  to  his  plan  to  confess  in  writing,  and  then  to  go 
to  Australia.  I  told  him  that  he  surely  must  be  sharp  enough 
to  see  to  what  accusations  this  would  subject  me,  and  how 
hurtful  it  would  be  to  our  case,  which  I  assured  him  was  of 
such  strength  that  it  would  smash  him,  quite  irrespective 
of  anything  he  might  say  or  do.  '  Why,  then,  do  you  want 
documents?'  he  said.  'Because,'  I  replied,  'the  issue  is  a 
political  one.  We  have  to  deal  with  prejudiced  Tories  who 
have  already  compromised  themselves  by  pinning  themselves 
to  the  genuineness  of  the  letters,  and  consequently  our  case 
cannot  be  too  much  strengthened.  With  such  people  you 
must  put  butter  upon  bacon.'  'What  documents  do  you 
want/'  he  said.  'Egan's  letters,  the  original  signatures 
from  which  you  traced  those  of  Egan  and  Parnell,  and  a  few 
letters  forged  in  my  presence,'  I  said.  'I  have  not  got 
Egan's  letters:  I  destroyed  them.  I  have  not  got  the  signa- 
tures. I  gave  Houston  the  letter  of  Parnell  from  which  I 
took  his  signature.  I  will,  if  you  like,  forge  the  letters  in 


BALFOUR'S  COERCION  POLICY  381 

your  presence.  I  will  give  you  the  names  of  the  three  men 
from  whom  I  told  Houston  I  got  the  letters,  and  I  will  give 
you  the  letters  that  Houston  wrote  to  me,'  he  answered. 
I  said  that  I  would  not  give  sixpence  for  these  without  the 
two  items  that  I  had  mentioned,  and  he  reiterated  that  he 
had  not  got  them.  '  Why, '  I  suddenly  said  to  him, '  did  you 
write  to  Archbishop  Walsh  about  the  letters?'  'The 
Archbishop,'  he  replied,  'has  not  got  my  letters;  he  sent 
them  all  back ;  to  reveal  anything  concerning  them  would  be 
to  violate  the  confidence  between  a  priest  and  a  penitent.' 
'Well,'  I  finished  by  saying,  'think  it  over.  I  am  going 
out  of  town.  When  I  return,  come  and  see  me  again,  and 
in  the  meanwhile  try  and  find  the  originals  of  Egan's  letters. 
I  will  let  you  know  when  I  come  back.'  He  said  that  he 
would  think  it  over,  and,  on  wishing  him  good-night,  I  asked 
him  what  he  contemplated  doing?  He  said  that  he  was  in  a 
terrible  mess,  but  that  he  saw  no  other  course  open  for  him 
but  to  go  into  the  box  and  swear  that  he  had  bought  the 
letters,  and  that  if  they  were  forgeries  he  had  been  deceived. 
'  You  will  be  a  fool  if  you  do, '  I  said,  '  but  that  is  your  affair, 
not  mine.  If  I  were  in  your  place  I  should  tell  the  truth,  and 
ask  for  the  indemnity.'  'That  is  all  very  well,'  he  said, 
'but  on  what  am  I  to  live?'  And  so  we  parted."  Mr. 
Labouchere  did  not  see  Pigott  again  until  he  saw  him  in  the 
witness-box  more  than  two  months  later.  Pigott  returned 
to  Ireland  about  the  middle  of  December  and  the  Commis- 
sion adjourned  until  January  15.  Patrick  Egan  had  written 
to  Mr.  Labouchere  on  December  2  from  Lincoln,  Massa- 
chusetts saying:  "I  hope  you  will  be  able  to  squeeze  the 
truth  out  of  Pigott  in  the  way  you  say,  as  I  should  dislike 
terribly  to  see  him  profit  in  any  way  by  his  villainy.  I  do 
not  believe  there  is  a  single  thing  in  the  suspicion  against 
O'Shea.  .  .  .  The  fellow  is  incapable  of  playing  the  r61e  of 
heavy  villain.  I  am  quite  convinced  that  the  forgery  part  of 
the  scheme  was  the  sole  work  of  Pigott.  You  will  perceive 
that  all  your  injunctions  with  regard  to  secrecy  have  been 


382  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

observed  on  this  side,  but  everything  gets  out  from  London 
and  Dublin.  Yesterday  we  had  on  one  of  our  Lincoln 
evening  papers  a  cable  (probably  a  copy  of  a  New  York 
Herald  cable)  giving  all  particulars  about  the  watch  that  is 
being  kept  on  Pigott  and  the  discovery  that  C.  is  doing 
detective  work  for  the  Times,  that  F.  was  mixed  up  with  the 
forgeries  and  other  matters." 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that,  when  the  Commission 
adjourned  in  the  middle  of  December,  the  all-important 
question  of  the  letters  had  not  yet  been  touched  upon.  "  The 
objects  of  the  accusers,"  says  Lord  Morley,  "was  to  show  the 
complicity  of  the  accused  with  crime  by  tracing  crime  to  the 
League,  and  making  every  member  of  the  League  construc- 
tively liable  for  every  act  of  which  the  League  was  construc- 
tively guilty.  Witnesses  were  produced,  in  a  series  that 
seemed  interminable,  to  tell  the  story  of  five-and-twenty  out- 
rages in  Mayo,  of  as  many  in  Cork,  of  forty-two  in  Galway,  of 
sixty-five  in  Kerry,  one  after  another,  and  all  with  immeasur- 
able detail.  Some  of  the  witnesses  spoke  no  English,  and 
the  English  of  others  was  hardly  more  intelligible  than  Erse. 
Long  extracts  were  read  out  from  four  hundred  and  forty 
speeches.  The  counsel  on  one  side  produced  a  passage  that 
made  against  the  Speaker,  and  then  the  counsel  on  the  other 
side  found  and  read  some  qualifying  passage  that  made  as 
strongly  for  him.  The  three  judges  groaned.  They  had  al- 
ready, they  said  plaintively,  ploughed  through  the  speeches  in 
the  solitude  of  their  own  rooms.  Could  they  not  be  taken  as 
read?  'No,'  said  the  prosecuting  counsel,  'we  are  building 
up  an  argument,  and  it  cannot  be  built  up  in  a  silent  manner.' 
In  truth  it  was  designed  for  the  public  outside  the  court, 
and  not  a  touch  was  spared  that  might  deepen  the  odium. 
Week  after  week  the  ugly  tale  went  on — a  squalid  ogre  let 
loose  among  a  population  demoralised  by  ages  of  wicked 
neglect,  misery,  and  oppression.  One  side  strove  to  show 
that  the  ogre  had  been  wantonly  raised  by  the  Land  League 
for  political  objects  of  their  own ;  the  other,  that  it  was  the 


BALFOUR'S  COERCION  POLICY  383 

progeny  of  distress  and  wrong,  that  the  League  had  rather 
controlled  than  kindled  its  ferocity,  and  that  crime  and 
outrage  were  due  to  local  animosities  for  which  neither 
League  nor  parliamentary  leaders  were  responsible."1  The 
Nationalists  were  impatient  for  the  real  business  to  begin, 
for  it  was  felt  by  every  one  that,  if  the  letters  were  proved  to 
be  genuine,  the  case  was  practically  won  all  round  for  the 
Times,  whereas,  if  they  proved  to  be  forgeries,  public 
opinion  on  the  subject  could  have  but  one  bias.  Indeed, 
Mr.  Chamberlain  himself  had  said:  "To  lead  the  inquiry 
off  into  subsidiary  and  unimportant  matters  would  be  ... 
fatal  to  the  reputation  of  the  Times — fatal  to  its  success." 
And  again,  "If  the  Times  fails  to  maintain  its  principal 
charges,  I  do  not  think  much  attention  will  be  attached  to 
other  charges.  Any  attempt,  as  it  appears  to  all,  on  the 
part  of  the  Times  to  put  aside  those  principal  charges 
or  not  to  put  them  in  the  forefront  will  redound  to  their 
discredit."*  The  delay,  however,  gave  this  advantage 
to  the  Nationalist  side — they  had  more  time  in  which  to 
accumulate  confirmatory  evidence  against  the  forger, 
and  the  forger  was  given  more  time  in  which  to  further 
involve  himself,  in  the  net  which  his  fowler  had  spread 
for  him,  by  writing  foolish  letters  and  telling  needless 
lies.  Pigott  had  promised  Mr.  Labouchere  to  return  to 
London  whenever  he  sent  for  him.  Parnell  wrote  to 
Mr.  Labouchere  during  the  Christmas  vacation  of  the 
Commissioners : 

HOUSE  OF  COMMONS,  Jan.  14,  1889. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — I  am  anxious  to  see  you  before 
your  Irish  friend  returns  to  London.  Kindly  give  me  an  ap- 
pointment, and  let  it  be  if  possible  after  four  o'clock. — Yours 
sincerely, 

CHAS.  S.  PARNELL. 

1  Morley,  Life  of  Gladstone,  vol.  iii. 

1  Macdonald,  Diary  of  the  Parnell  Commission,  July  6,  1887. 


384  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

He  wrote  again  as  follows  on  the  2 1st : 

I  do  not  think  you  need  send  for  your  Dublin  friend  this  time, 
as  the  Times  will  probably  do  that  for  you,  and  you  will  hear  when 
he  is  in  London.  Another  forged  letter  of  Egan's  was  produced 
in  Court  last  week,  and  sworn  to  by  Delaney,  evidently  one  of  the 
Pigott  series.  I  am  laid  up  with  a  cold,  but  hope  to  be  out  to- 
morrow, when  I  will  try  and  call  to  see  you  in  the  afternoon.— 
Yours  very  truly,  CHAS.  S.  PARNELL. 

The  Irish  friend  was,  of  course,  Pigott,  and  Delaney  was  a 
convict — a  witness  for  the  Times.  He  was  one  of  the  Phoenix 
Park  criminals, and  was  described  by  the  Daily  JVems  reporter, 
present  in  court,  as  of  "over  middle  height,  stoutish  in  build, 
reddish-yellow  haired,  and  with  features  which  were  more  of 
a  Russian  than  an  Irish  cast.  He  wore  a  short  jacket  of 
check  tweed,  and  a  big  white  cravat  about  his  neck. "  He 
had  been  brought  up  from  Maryborough  prison,  where  he 
was  doing  his  life  sentence.  His  brother  was  hanged  for  the 
Phoenix  Park  murders,  and  so  would  he  have  been  himself 
if  he  had  not  confessed,  and,  in  consequence,  had  his  sentence 
changed  from  execution  to  penal  servitude  for  life.  He  had 
sworn  to  the  handwriting  of  Patrick  Egan  on  one  of  the 
letters  produced  in  court.  "Are  you  an  expert?"  asked  Sir 
Charles  Russell  carelessly.  No,  Mr.  Delaney  was  not  an 
expert,  but  he  remembered  the  signature  after  so  many 
years,  and  he  identified  it  when  he  was  shown  it  "yesterday 
evening"  by  the  Times  agent.  He  was  able  to  identify  it 
because  Carey,  seven  or  eight  years  ago,  showed  him  three 
of  Mr.  Egan's  letters. x 

Pigott  had  been  subpoenaed  by  the  Times  as  a  witness  early 
in  December.  On  January  24,  Mr.  Labouchere  wrote  to  him 
saying:  "I  see  that  Sir  R.  Webster  talks  about  soon  getting 
to  the  letters.  When  are  you  likely  to  be  over?  If  you  wish 
it,  I  will  send  your  expenses  to  come  over. "  At  the  end  of 
the  month  he  sent  Pigott  £10.  Labouchere's  letter  and  the 

1  Macdonald,  Diary  of  the  Parnett  Commission. 


BALFOUR'S  COERCION  POLICY  385 

£10  note  were  confided  at  once  by  Pigott  to  Mr.  Houston, 
who  handed  them  over  to  Mr.  Soames,  and,  of  course,  they 
were  produced  in  court  and  a  rather  different  interpretation 
put  upon  them  to  the  one  the  recipient  knew  was  warranted. 
Pigott  was  not  called  into  the  witness-box,  the  ordeal 
which  he  so  justly  dreaded,  until  the  fifty-fourth  day  of  the 
Commission's  sittings.  He  at  once  gave  an  account  of  the 
way  he  had  obtained  the  first  batch  of  incriminating  letters. 
It  read  like  a  romance,  as  indeed,  it  was  in  every  sense  of 
the  word — how  Mr.  Houston  had  begged  him,  if  possible,  to 
find  some  authentic  documents  to  substantiate  accusations 
against  the  Irish  leaders,  how  he  had  set  forth  for  Lausanne, 
all  his  expenses  handsomely  paid,  and  had  met  there  an  old 
friend  who  had  told  him  about  a  letter  written  by  Parnell 
which  was  in  Paris,  and  might  be  obtained ;  how  he  had  then 
proceeded  to  Paris  and  by  a  marvellous  stroke  of  good  luck 
had  run  up  against  an  Irishman  in  the  street  who  was  able 
to  give  him  more  details  about  the  Parnell  letter,  and  other 
documents  of  a  similar  kind,  which  had  been  found  in  a  black 
bag  in  a  Paris  lodging-house.  He  had  not  immediately 
bought  the  bag  and  its  contents,  because  there  were  many 
difficulties  in  the  way,  but  he  had  gone  back  to  London  and 
told  Mr.  Houston  the  whole  story,  and  returned  to  Paris 
ready  to  clinch  the  bargain.  But  the  Irish  friend  was  not 
easy  to  bring  to  terms.  He  said  Pigott  must,  before  he  could 
get  possession  of  the  letters,  go  to  America  and  obtain  the 
permission  to  buy  them  from  the  Fenians  there.  To  Amer- 
ica he  accordingly  went,  and  returned  with  a  letter  from  John 
Breslin  to  the  Irish  friend  authorising  the  sale  of  the  Parnell 
letter  (afterwards  known  as  the  "facsimile  letter")  and  the 
rest  of  the  papers.  Houston  came  over  to  Paris  and  paid 
him  £500  for  the  contents  of  the  black  bag,  and  gave  him 
£105  for  his  own  trouble.  It  must  be  remembered  that  all 
his  travelling  expenses  had  been  paid,  as  well  as  £i  a  day 
for  hotels — not  a  bad  remuneration  for  a  needy  man  such  as 
Pigott  was,  who,  it  turned  out  later,  was  making  what  living 


386  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

he  could  by  the  sale  of  indecent  photographs  and  books  to  all 
who  cared  to  buy  them.  Doubtless  the  black  bag  was  useful 
to  him  in  his  book  and  picture  business,  which  was  why  he  did 
not  sell  it  with  its  temporary  contents  to  Mr.  Houston.  The 
said  contents,  as  bought  by  Houston,  were  as  follows:  Five 
letters  of  Mr.  Parnell's,  six  of  Patrick  Egan's,  some  scraps 
of  paper,  and  the  torn-out  leaves  of  an  old  account-book. 
The  black  bag  was  supposed  to  have  been  left  in  Paris  by 
an  Irish  patriot  (Frank  Byrne  or  James  O 'Kelly)  and  had 
been  taken  possession  of  by  the  Clan-na-Gael.  Subse- 
quently two  other  batches  of  letters  were  obtained  by  Pigott 
in  Paris,  and  likewise  sold  to  the  Times. 

The  Attorney-General,  in  the  course  of  his  examination  of 
Pigott,  drew  from  him  the  following  remarkable  account  of 
his  visit  to  Mr.  Labouchere's  house  on  October  24: 

The  Attorney-General.  Tell  us,  as  nearly  as  you  can,  what 
passed  between  you,  Mr.  Labouchere,  and  Mr.  Parnell,  and  if, 
at  any  part  of  it,  Mr.  Parnell  was  not  present,  just  tell  us  and  draw 
the  distinction — what  passed  as  nearly  as  you  can:  how  did  the 
conversation  begin? 

Pigott.  I  think,  as  well  as  I  recollect,  Mr.  Parnell  commenced 
the  conversation,  and  what  he  said  was  to  the  effect  that  they 
held  proofs  in  their  hands  that  would  convict  me  of  the  forgery 
of  all  the  letters,  and  he  asked  me,  with  reference  to  my  statement 
to  the  effect  that  I  wished  if  possible  to  avoid  giving  evidence  at 
all,  how  I  proposed  to  do  that.  I  explained  that  I  had  not  been 
subpoenaed  by  the  Times  up  to  that  date,  that  the  only  subpoena 
I  received  was  the  one  Mr.  Lewis  had  served  me  with,  and  it 
occurred  to  me  then  that  probably,  if  I  could  induce  Mr.  Lewis 
to  withdraw  his  subpoena,  I  might  avoid  in  that  way  coming 
forward  at  all.  Mr.  Parnell  was  of  opinion  that  that  could  not 
be  done,  that  Mr.  Lewis  could  not  withdraw  his  subpoena,  that 
I  would  be  obliged  to  appear.  Then,  I  think,  Mr.  Labouchere 
took  up  the  running,  and  he  was  rather  facetious. 

The  Attorney-General.     What  did  he  say,  please? 

Pigott.     He  made  a  proposition  to  me  right  out,  that  I  should 


BALFOUR'S  COERCION  POLICY  387 

appear  in  the  witness-box  and  swear  that  I  had  forged  the  letters, 
thereby  ensuing — entitling  myself  to  receive  from  the  Commis- 
sioners a  certificate  of  immunity  from  any  proceedings,  legal  or 
criminal.  He  said  that  was  his  reading  of  the  law,  and  Mr.  Par- 
nell  agreed  with  him  that  such  was  the  case,  that  it  was  an  ex- 
tremely simple  matter;  it  was  merely  going  into  the  box,  taking 
an  oath,  and  walking  out  free. 

The  Attorney-General.  I  want  just  to  get  this:  did  the  sug- 
gestion that  if  you  went  into  the  witness-box,  and  said  that  you 
forged  the  letters,  that  you  would  get  your  certificate,  come  from 
Mr.  Labouchere? 

PigoU.     Distinctly. 

The  Attorney-General.     What  else,  please? 

PigoU.  He  urged  me,  as  a  further  inducement  to  do  this, 
that  I  would  become  immensely  popular  in  Ireland,  the  fact  that 
I  had  swindled  the  Times  would  be  sufficient  of  itself  to  secure  me 
a  seat  in  Parliament  to  begin  with,  and  then,  if  at  any  time  I 
wished  to  go  to  the  United  States,  he  would  undertake  that  I 
should  be  received  with  a  torchlight  procession  from  all  the  organ- 
isations there.  Of  course,  I  could  scarcely  believe  that  he  was 
serious,  but  still « 

Here  almost  uncontrolled  merriment  burst  out  all  over 
the  court,  in  which  Mr.  Labouchere  himself  joined  more 
heartily  than  any  one. 

The  President  of  the  Court.  I  must  say,  whether  this  is  true  or 
not,  it  is  not  a  fit  subject  for  laughter. 

But  whether  the  President  would  or  no,  it  was  impossible 
to  prevent  constant  ripples  of  laughter  from  breaking  out 
all  over  the  court  while  Pigott  was  narrating  his  version  of 
the  first  meeting  at  Mr.  Labouchere's  house.  Pigott  told  how 
Mr.  Lewis  had  arrived  on  the  scene,  and  had  also  denounced 
him  as  the  forger  of  the  letters — "Mr.  Lewis  assumed  his 
severest  manner,"  said  Pigott.  He  continued  his  evidence 
after  some  further  questions  from  the  Attorney-General. 

1  Special  Commission  Act,  1888,  vol.  v. 


388  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

Pigott.  Mr.  Labouchere  beckoned  me  outside  the  door  into 
the  hall,  and  he  there  said — I  forgot  to  mention  that  in  the  course 
of  conversation  I  stated  that  I  had — I  do  not  know  exactly 
whether  I  said  I  had  been  promised  £5000  by  the  Times  or  that 
I  had  demanded  it. 

The  Attorney-General.     One  or  the  other? 

Pigott.  One  or  the  other.  So  referring  to  that  l\Ir.  Labou- 
chere said  that  they  were  prepared  to  pay  me  £1000 — that  he 
himself  was  prepared  to  pay  me  £1000,  but,  of  course,  I  was  not 
to  mention  anything  about  it  to  Mr.  Parnell  or  to  Mr.  Lewis. 

The  President.  One  moment  before  you  go  further.  "He 
beckoned  me  outside" — where  was  he  then? 

Pigott.     That  was  at  Labouchere's  house. 

The  President.     I  know,  but  where  was  it? 

Pigott.     Outside  into  the  hall. 

The  President.     Was  it  a  whole  house  or  was  it  a  flat? 

Pigott.  It  is  a  whole  house.  He  took  me  into  the  entrance 
hall,  the  room  that  we  were  in  was  the  front  room. 

The  President.     A  dining-room  or  library  or  what? 

Pigott.     A  library. 

The  Attorney-General.  Is  that  the  end  of  the  conversation  that 
then  took  place? 

Pigott.     Up  to  that  time,  yes. 

The  Attorney-General.  What  did  you  say  to  Mr.  Labouchere 
when  he  said  he  was  prepared  to  pay  you  £1000? 

Pigott.  I  said  I  thought  it  was  a  very  handsome  sum;  I  did 
not  say  whether  I  would  take  it  or  not.  As  well  as  I  can  recollect, 
however,  I  raised  no  objection.  I  took  it  that  he  understood  me 
to  agree  to  that  sum.  Then,  on  returning  to  the  room,  I  said 
distinctly — very  distinctly — that  nothing  under  heaven  would 
induce  me  to  go  into  the  witness-box  and  swear  a  lie — nothing 
would.  Then  Mr.  Lewis  explained  to  me  the  necessity  for  my 
going  into  the  witness-box  might  be  avoided  by  the  course  that 
he  suggested:  that  is  that  I  was  to  write  to  the  Times  to  state 
that  I  believed  the  letters  were  forgeries,  or  that  I  had  forged  them 
myself,  if  I  preferred  it.  At  all  events  I  was  to  acquaint  the 
Manager  of  the  Times  with  the  fact  that  the  letters  were  actual 
forgeries,  and  that  thereupon  the  Times  would  naturally  withdraw 
the  letters,  and  the  thing  would  drop,  and  of  course  Mr.  Labou- 


BALFOUR'S  COERCION  POLICY  389 

chere's  offer  would  stand.    Well,  Mr.  Lewis  did  not  say  that, 
but  of  course  I  understood  it. 

Pigott  proceeded  to  give  his  account  of  his  interview 
with  Mr.  Lewis  on  the  following  morning.  He  said  that 
Mr.  Lewis  had  taken  notes  of  what  he  (Pigott)  said,  and  he 
(Pigott)  had  told  Mr.  Lewis  all  he  had  told  Mr.  Soames  with 
reference  to  the  hunt  for  and  discovery  of  the  incriminating 
letters  in  Paris.  Mr.  Soames's  evidence,  given  in  court  on 
February  15,  of  what  Pigott  had  told  him  on  this  subject 
differed  very  considerably  from  what,  according  to  Mr.  Lewis's 
notes,  he  had  told  the  latter.  For  instance,  Mr.  Pigott  told 
Mr.  Lewis  on  October  25  that  he  had  sold  the  letters  to  Mr. 
Houston,  never  believing  for  a  moment  himself  that  they 
were  genuine.  In  court,  on  February  21,  Pigott  denied  the 
accuracy  of  Mr.  Lewis's  notes,  made  during  his  conversation 
with  him  at  Anderton's  Hotel  on  October  25. 

All  Pigott's  correspondence  with  Mr.  Lewis  and  Mr. 
Labouchere  was  then  read  out  in  court,  with  the  replies  of 
the  two  gentlemen  to  Mr.  Pigott.  The  Attorney-General 
ended  his  examination  as  follows: 

The  Attorney-General.  The  only  other  matter  I  want  to  put 
to  you  is  this:  these  gentlemen  told  you — Mr.  Parnell  and  Mr. 
Labouchere — that  they  had  copies  of  letters,  which  they  had 
written  to  you? 

Pigott.    Yes. 

The  Attorney-General.  From  which  it  was  alleged  that  you 
had  copied  these  documents? 

Pigott.    Yes. 

The  Attorney-General.     Did  they  produce  any  to  you? 

Pigott.     No. 

The  Attorney-General.  Did  they  at  any  time,  either  at  Mr. 
Lewis's  office  or  at  Mr.  Labouchere's,  offer  to  show  you  any  of 
them? 

Pigott.    No. 

As  the  Attorney-General,  rearranging   his   gown,  was 


390  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

slowly  resuming  his  seat,  a  loud  murmur  of  conversation 
broke  out  over  the  court.  It  stopped  suddenly.  Scarcely 
was  the  Attorney-General  seated  when  Sir  Charles  Russell 
stood  bolt  upright.  He  had  a  clean  sheet  of  paper  in  his 
hand.  There  was  such  a  silence  in  the  court  that  even  the 
fall  of  a  pin  would  have  been  heard.  Pigott's  little  day  of 
peace  was  over.  Poor  fellow!  He  had  done  his  best  to  keep 
his  share  of  the  business  in  the  black  shadows  where  such 
deeds  are  wont  to  skulk,  but  the  gloom  was  about  to  be 
dispelled  by  the  light  of  truth. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
THE   COLLAPSE  OF  RICHARD   PIGOTT 

SIR  CHARLES  RUSSELL'S  cross-examination  of  Pigott 
on  the  fifty-fourth  and  fifty-fifth  days  of  the  Commis- 
sion's sittings  is  generally  considered  to  be  one  of  the  finest 
things  of  the  kind,  from  a  technical  point  of  view,  ever  heard. 
A  friend  who  was  much  with  him  at  that  time  relates  that,  on 
the  day  the  cross-examination  commenced,  he  was  irritable 
and  depressed  and  unable  to  eat,  and  that  he  could  not  have 
been  more  nervous  had  he  been  a  junior  with  his  first  brief 
instead  of  the  most  formidable  advocate  at  the  Bar.  But, 
as  he  stood  facing  the  forger,  his  whole  appearance  changed. 
He  was  a  picture  of  calmness,  self-possession,  and  strength, 
there  was  no  sign  of  impatience  or  irritability,  not  a  trace 
of  anxiety  or  care. '  In  the  profound  silence  that  had  fallen 
upon  the  court  he  began,  in  tones  of  great  courtesy: 

Mr.  Pigott,  would  you  be  good  enough,  with  my  Lord's  per- 
mission, to  write  some  words  on  that  sheet  of  paper  for  me. 
Perhaps  you  will  sit  down  in  order  to  do  it.  [He  gave  him  the 
sheet  of  paper  he  had  in  his  hand.]  Would  you  like  to  sit  down? 

Pigott.     Oh  no,  thanks. 

The  President.  Well,  but  I  think  that  it  is  better  that  you 
should  sit  down.  Here  is  a  table  upon  which  you  can  write 
in  the  ordinary  way,  the  course  you  always  pursue. 

Sir  Charles  Russell.    Will  you  write  the  word  "livelihood"? 

1  Barry  O'Brien,  Life  of  Lord  Russell  of  Kiliowen. 

391 


392  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

Just  leave  a  space.  Will  you  write  the  word  ' '  likelihood ' '  ?  Will 
you  write  your  own  name,  leaving  a  space  between  each?  Will 
you  write  the  word  "  proselytism, "  and  finally,  I  think  I  will  not 
trouble  you  any  more  at  present,  "Patrick  Egan "  and  "  P.  Egan " 
underneath  it — "Patrick  Egan"  first  and  "P.  Egan"  underneath 
it?  There  is  one  word  more  I  had  forgotten.  Lower  down,  please, 
leaving  spaces,  write  the  word  "hesitancy"  with  a  small  "h. " 

Pigott,  after  he  had  written  what  he  was  told,  handed 
back  the  sheet  of  paper,  and,  as  soon  as  Sir  Charles  Russell 
had  glanced  at  it,  he  knew  that  he  had  scored  a  great  point 
for  Mr.  Parnell.  The  word  that  he  had  told  Pigott  to  write 
last,  and  with  a  small  "  h, "  as  if  that  were  the  significant  part 
of  the  experiment,  was  the  word  which  Pigott  had  misspelt 
in  one  of  the  letters  supposed  to  be  from  Parnell  to  Egan 
which  the  Attorney- General  had  produced  at  the  O'Donnell 
v.  Walter  trial.  Pigott  had  again  spelt  it  wrong.  Hesitancy 
on  the  piece  of  paper  which  he  handed  back  to  Sir  Charles 
Russell  was  spelt  "hesitency. " 

The  cross-examination  of  Pigott  occupied  the  rest  of  that 
day,  and  before  the  end  of  it  the  wretched  man  had  fallen 
into  hopeless  confusion.  The  production  of  some  of  his 
correspondence  with  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin  (Dr.  Walsh), 
in  which  he  offered,  for  a  consideration  of  course,  to  avert 
the  possibility  of  a  blow  which  was  about  to  fall  upon  the 
Nationalist  party  (presumably  the  publication  of  the  fac- 
simile letter) ,  almost  finished  his  brazen  self  -command.  The 
day's  sitting  ended  in  a  roar  of  laughter,  for  Pigott's  silly, 
aimless  reflections,  elicited  by  the  advocate's  remorseless, 
persistent  questions,  were  ludicrous,  and  it  was  easy  to  see 
what  the  climax  of  the  affair  would  be.  The  next  day  things 
went  worse  and  worse  for  Pigott.  A  correspondence  which 
he  had  with  Egan  in  1881  was  produced,  in  which  he  had 
misspelt  the  word  "hesitancy  "  as  he  had  done  the  day  before 
in  court.  Egan's  answers  to  Pigott  were  not  forthcoming, 
for  reasons  which  the  forger  made  known  later  on,  but  the 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  RICHARD  PIGOTT        393 

drafts  of  these  answers,  produced  by  Mr.  Lewis  (who  had  got 
them  direct  from  Mr.  Egan  through  Mr.  Labouchere), 
bearing  a  remarkable  similarity  to  the  Egan  letters  produced 
by  the  Times,  were  read  by  Sir  Charles  Russell.  Copies  of 
letters  written  by  Mr.  Parnell  to  Pigott  in  1881  were  also 
read  out,  coinciding  word  for  word  in  parts  with  the  "fac- 
simile letter"  and  the  others  put  in  by  the  accusers  of  the 
Nationalist  party.  Then  Pigott  was  made  to  acknowledge 
how  he  had  blackmailed  Mr.  Forster,  and  Mr.  Wemyss  Reid 
produced  the  Pigott-Forster  correspondence  in  court. 
Before  the  reading  of  this  correspondence  was  finished,  the 
densely  packed  audience  in  the  court,  according  to  the  Daily 
News  reporter,  was  wrought  up  to  the  highest  pitch  of  amuse- 
ment and  excitement.  The  court  usher  had  long  since 
ceased  to  cry  out  "Silence!"  The  merriment  was  almost 
continuous.  The  judges  themselves  were  unable  to  repress 
their  feelings.  A  loud  ringing  roar  of  laughter  broke  forth 
as  Sir  Charles  Russell  read  one  letter  containing  Pigott's 
application  for  £200  to  enable  him  to  proceed  to  Sydney, 
and  some  hints  as  to  the  pressure  which  was  brought  to  bear 
upon  him  to  publish  the  Forster  letters.  Mr.  Justice  Day, 
bending  forward,  reddened  and  shook  with  laughter.  In 
this  letter  Pigott  wrote:  "I  feel  this  is  my  last  chance,  and 
if  that  fails  only  the  workhouse  and  the  grave  remains." 
Poor  Pigott  looked  as  if  he  would  prefer  even  the  grave  to  the 
witness-box.  He  changed  colour;  the  helpless,  foolish 
smile  flickered  about  the  weak  heavy  mouth;  his  hands 
moved  about  restlessly,  nervously.  Then  came  the  climax — 
Pigott's  letter  to  Mr.  Forster,  saying  that  he  felt  tempted  to 
reveal  to  the  world  how  he  had  been  bribed  by  Mr.  Forster 
to  write  against  the  interests  of  Ireland.  The  notion  of 
Pigott's  appearing  in  the  character  of  injured  innocence  sent 
the  audience  off  once  more  into  a  fit  of  laughter.  It  was  now 
four  o'clock,  and,  in  the  uproar  and  confusion,  Pigott  de- 
scended from  the  box,  smiling  foolishly. '  That  he  had  forged 

1  Macdonald,  Diary  of  the  Parnell  Commission. 


394  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

the  letters  no  one  now  doubted  for  a  moment.  The  way  he 
had  actually  done  it  was  not  yet  absolutely  clear,  but  the 
ingenuous  Pigott  was  not  going  to  leave  any  mysteries 
unsolved.  The  court  was  adjourned  until  the  following 
Tuesday. 

The  story  of  how  the  court  met  on  February  26,  and  when 
Pigott  was  called  upon  to  enter  the  witness-box  there  was 
no  answer,  and  how  it  was  subsequently  elicited  that  he  had 
disappeared  from  his  hotel  on  the  previous  afternoon  and 
not  been  seen  again,  has  been  graphically  told  by  more  than 
one  writer.  Who  had  given  him  the  money  to  bolt,  and 
who  had  assisted  him  to  evade  the  constables  who  were 
supposed  to  be  watching  him,  has  never  been  positively 
revealed,  but  the  fact  remained — there  was  no  Pigott  there 
to  tell  the  end  of  his  squalid  tale.  The  court  adjourned  for 
some  thirty  minutes,  and  then  Sir  Charles  Russell  made  the 
startling  announcement  that  Pigott,  without  an  invitation 
from  any  one,  had  called  upon  Mr.  Labouchere  in  Grosvenor 
Gardens  on  the  previous  Saturday,  the  day  after  his  disas- 
trous cross-examination,  and  had  then  and  there  dictated 
to  him  a  full  confession.  This  confession  had  been  signed 
by  Pigott  and  witnessed  by  Mr.  George  Augustus  Sala. 
Mr.  George  Lewis,  to  whom  Mr.  Labouchere  had  communi- 
cated the  confession,  had  refused  to  have  anything  to  do  with 
the  document,  and  sent  it  back  to  Pigott  with  the  following 
letter: 

ELY  PLACE,  HOLBORN,  Feb.  25,  1889. 

SIR, — Mr.  Labouchere  has  informed  me  that  on  Saturday  you 
called  at  his  house  and  expressed  a  desire  to  make  a  statement  in 
writing,  and  he  has  handed  to  us  the  confession  you  have  made, 
that  you  are  the  forger  of  the  whole  of  the  letters  given  in  evidence 
by  the  Times  purporting  to  be  written  respectively  by  Mr.  Parnell, 
Mr.  Egan,  Mr.  Davitt,  and  Mr.  O'Kelly,  and  that,  in  addition, 
you  committed  perjury  in  support  of  the  case  of  the  Times.  Mr. 
Parnell  has  instructed  us  to  inform  you  that  he  declines  to  hold 
any  communication  directly  or  indirectly  with  you,  and  he  further 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  RICHARD  PIGOTT        395 

instructs  us  to  return  you  the  written  confession  which  we  enclose, 
and  which  for  safety  sake  we  send  by  hand. — We  are,  sir,  yours 
obediently, 

LEWIS  &  LEWIS. 
Richard  Pigott,  Esq. 

On  the  following  day  Sir  Richard  Webster  made  the 
announcement  to  the  court  that  a  letter  had  been  received 
in  Pigott 's  handwriting,  posted  in  Paris,  addressed  to  Mr. 
Shannon,  the  Dublin  solicitor,  who  had  been  assisting  Mr. 
Soames.  The  letter  had  not  been  opened,  and  he  handed  it 
to  the  President  of  the  Commission,  who  passed  it  down  to 
Mr.  Cunynghame,  and  asked  him  to  open  and  read  its 
contents.  It  was  Pigott's  confession  made  to  Mr.  Labouchere 
and  Mr.  Lewis's  letter  to  Pigott  quoted  above.  The  en- 
velope contained  also  a  note  from  the  irrepressible  Pigott  as 
follows: 

H6TEL  DE  DEUX  MONDES, 

AVENUE  DE  L' OPERA,  PARIS,  Tuesday. 

DEAR  SIR, — Just  before  I  left  enclosed  was  handed  to  me. 
It  had  been  left  while  I  was  out.  Will  write  again  soon. — Yours 
truly, 

R.  PIGOTT. 

The  confession,  as  far  as  the  letters  were  concerned,  ran 
as  follows: 

The  circumstances  connected  with  the  obtaining  of  the  letters, 
as  I  gave  in  evidence,  are  not  true.  No  one  save  myself  was 
concerned  in  the  transaction.  I  told  Houston  that  I  had  dis- 
covered the  letters  in  Paris,  but  I  grieve  to  have  to  confess  that 
I  simply  myself  fabricated  them,  using  genuine  letters  of  Messrs. 
Parnell  and  Egan  in  copying  certain  words,  phrases,  and  general 
character  of  the  handwriting.  I  traced  some  words  and  phrases 
by  putting  the  genuine  letter  against  the  window,  and  placing 
on  it  the  sheet  of  which  copies  have  been  read  in  court, 
and  four  or  five  letters  of  Mr.  Egan,  which  were  also  read  in 
court.  I  destroyed  these  letters  after  using  them.  Some  of  the 


396  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

signatures  I  traced  in  this  manner,  and  some  I  wrote.  I  then 
wrote  to  Houston  telling  him  to  come  to  Paris  for  the  documents. 
I  told  him  that  they  had  been  placed  in  a  black  bag  with  some 
old  accounts,  scraps  of  paper,  and  old  newspapers.  On  his 
arrival  I  produced  to  him  the  letters,  accounts,  and  scraps  of 
paper.  After  a  brief  inspection  he  handed  me  a  cheque  on 
Cook  for  £500,  the  price  that  I  told  him  I  had  agreed  to  pay  for 
them.  At  the  same  time  he  gave  me  £105  in  bank-notes  as  my 
own  commission.  The  accounts  put  in  were  leaves  torn  from 
an  old  account  book  of  my  own,  which  contained  details  of  the 
expenditure  of  Fenian  money  entrusted  to  me  from  time  to  time, 
which  is  mainly  in  the  handwriting  of  David  Murphy,  my  cashier. 
The  scraps  I  found  in  the  bottom  of  an  old  writing-desk.  I 
do  not  recollect  in  whose  writing  they  are. 

The  second  batch  of  letters  was  also  written  by  me.  Mr. 
ParnelTs  signature  was  imitated  from  that  published  in  the  Times 
facsimile  letter.  I  do  not  now  remember  where  I  got  the  Egan 
letter  from  which  I  copied  the  signature. 

I  had  no  specimen  of  Campbell's  handwriting  beyond  the  two 
letters  of  Mr.  Parnell  to  me,  which  I  presumed  might  be  in  Mr. 
Campbell's  handwriting.  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Houston  that  this 
second  batch  was  for  sale  in  Paris,  having  been  brought  there 
from  America.  He  wrote  asking  to  see  them.  I  forwarded  them 
accordingly,  and  after  keeping  them  three  or  four  days,  he  sent 
me  a  cheque  on  Cook  for  the  price  demanded  for  them,  £550. 
The  third  batch  consisted  of  a  letter  imitated  by  me  from  a  letter 
written  in  pencil  to  me  by  Mr.  Davitt  when  he  was  in  prison, 
and  of  another  letter  copied  by  me  from  a  letter  of  a  very  early 
date,  which  I  received  from  James  O  'Kelly  when  he  was  writing 
on  my  newspapers,  and  of  a  third  letter  ascribed  to  Egan,  the 
writing  of  which,  and  some  of  the  words,  I  copied  from  an 
old  bill  of  exchange  in  Mr.  Egan's  handwriting.  £200  was 
the  price  paid  to  me  by  Mr.  Houston  for  these  three  letters.  It 
was  paid  in  bank-notes.  I  have  stated  that  for  the  first  batch 
I  received  £105  for  myself,  for  the  second  batch  I  got  £50,  for  the 
third  batch  I  was  supposed  to  receive  nothing. 

I  did  not  see  Breslin  in  America.  This  was  part  of  the 
deception. 

With  respect  to  my  interview  with  Messrs.  Parnell,  Labou- 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  RICHARD  PIGOTT        397 

chere,  and  Lewis,  my  sworn  statement  is  in  the  main  correct.  I 
am  now,  however,  of  opinion  that  the  offer  to  me  by  Mr.  Labou- 
chere  of  £1000  was  not  for  giving  evidence  but  for  any  documents 
in  Mr.  Egan's  or  Mr.  Parnell's  handwriting  that  I  might  happen  to 
have.  My  statement  only  referred  to  the  first  interviews  with 
these  gentlemen.  I  had  a  further  interview  with  Mr.  Labouchere, 
on  which  occasion  I  made  him  acquainted  with  further  circum- 
stances not  previously  mentioned  by  me  at  the  preceding  inter- 
views. 

There  was  a  pause  after  Mr.  Cunynghame  finished  read- 
ing the  extraordinary  document.  It  was  an  awkward 
moment  for  the  Attorney-General,  but,  in  an  extremely  dig- 
nified speech,  he  informed  the  court  that,  on  behalf  of  his 
clients,  he  asked  permission  to  withdraw  from  the  considera- 
tion of  the  Commission  the  question  of  the  genuineness  of  the 
letters  which  had  been  submitted  to  them.  On  that  day 
Mr.  Parnell  appeared  for  the  first  time  in  the  witness-box, 
and  in  answer  to  Sir  Charles  Russell's  questions  swore  to  the 
forgery  of  his  signature  on  all  the  letters  in  question.  There 
was  no  attempt  to  cross-examine  on  the  part  of  Sir  Richard 
Webster.  Mr.  Labouchere  entered  the  witness-box  on 
March  3.  He  gave  his  evidence  very  slowly  and  realistically, 
rather  in  the  style  perhaps  of  what  Lord  Randolph  Churchill 
described  as  newspaper  paragraphs,  but  there  was  no  lack 
of  connection  in  his  descriptions  of  his  various  interviews 
with  Pigott.  When  it  came  to  the  final  interview  on  the 
preceding  Saturday  the  questions  of  the  great  advocate 
became  very  close. 

Sir  Charles  Russell.    He  came  to  your  house? 
Mr.  Labouchere.    He  did. 
Sir  Charles  Russell.     Did  you  expect  him? 
Mr.  Labouchere.     No. 

Sir  Charles  Russell.  Had  he  given  you  any  warning  he  was 
coming? 

Mr.  Labouchere.     No. 

Sir  Charles  Russell.    Or  had  you  asked  him  to  come? 


398  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

Mr.  Labouchere.     No. 

Sir  Charles  Russell.  Now  tell  us  what  took  place  on  the 
occasion. 

Mr.  Labouchere  He  came  in.  I  did  not  catch  the  name 
when  the  servant  introduced  him.  I  was  writing  at  the  table, 
and  looked  up,  and  saw  him  standing  before  me,  and  he  said  to 
me,  "I  suppose  you  are  surprised  at  seeing  me  here?"  And  I 
said,  "  Oh !  not  at  all.  Pray  take  a  seat. " 

Sir  Charles  Russell.     I  said  what ? 

Mr.  Labouchere.  "  Not  at  all. "  Nothing  would  surprise  me 
about  Mr.  Pigott.  He  sat  down.  He  then  said  that  he  had 
come  over  to  confess  everything ;  that  he  supposed  he  should  have 
to  go  to  prison,  and  he  was  just  as  well  there  as  anywhere  else.  I 
said  that  he  must  thoroughly  understand  if  he  did  confess,  the 
confession  would  be  handed  to  Mr.  Lewis,  and  that  I  must  have  a 
witness. 

Of  the  historic  interview  in  Mr.  Labouchere's  study  in 
Grosvenor  Gardens  there  has  been  no  more  graphic  an 
account  written  than  the  one  by  its  only  witness,  the  veteran 
journalist,  George  Augustus  Sala: 

In  February  1889  [he  wrote]  I  was  the  occupant  of  a  flat  in 
Victoria  Street,  Westminster,  and  one  Saturday,  between  one  and 
two  P.M.,  a  knock  came  at  my  study  door,  and  I  was  handed  a 
letter  which  had  been  brought  in  hot  haste  by  a  servant  who  was 
instructed  to  wait  for  an  answer.  The  missive  was  of  the  briefest 
possible  kind,  and  was  from  my  near  neighbour  Mr.  Henry 
Labouchere,  M.P.,  whose  house  was  then  at  24  Grosvenor  Gar- 
dens. The  note  ran  thus:  "Can  you  leave  everything  and  come 
here  at  once?  Most  important  business. — H.  L. "  I  told  the 
servant  that  I  would  be  in  Grosvenor  Gardens  within  a  quarter  of 
an  hour,  and,  ere  that  time  had  expired,  I  was  ushered  into  a  large 
library  on  the  ground  floor,  where  I  found  the  senior  member  for 
Northampton  smoking  his  sempiternal  cigarette,  but  with  an 
unusual  and  curious  expression  of  animation  on  his  normaHy 
passive  countenance. 

He  was  not  alone.  Ensconced  in  a  roomy  fauteuil,  a  few 
paces  from  Mr.  Labouchere's  writing-table,  there  was  a  somewhat 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  RICHARD  PIGOTT        399 

burly  individual  of  middle  stature  and  more  than  middle  age. 
He  looked  fully  sixty,  although  I  have  been  given  to  understand 
that  his  age  did  not  exceed  fifty-five;  but  his  elderly  aspect  was 
enhanced  by  his  baldness,  which  revealed  a  large  amount  of  oval 
os  frontis  fringed  by  grey  locks.  The  individual  had  an  eyeglass 
screwed  into  one  eye,  and  he  was  using  this  optical  aid  most 
assiduously;  for  he  was  poring  over  a  copy  of  that  morning's 
issue  of  the  Times,  going  right  down  one  column  and  apparently 
up  it  again ;  then  taking  column  after  column  in  succession ;  then 
harking  back  as  though  he  had  omitted  some  choice  paragraph ; 
and  then  resuming  the  sequence  of  his  lecture,  ever  and  anon 
tapping  that  ovoid  frontal  bone  of  his,  as  though  to  evoke  mem- 
ories of  the  past,  with  a  little  silver  pencil-case.  I  noted  his 
somewhat  shabby  genteel  attire,  and,  in  particular,  I  observed 
that  the  hand  which  held  the  copy  of  the  Times  never  ceased  to 
shake.  Mr.  Labouchere,  in  his  most  courteous  manner  and  his 
blandest  tone,  said,  "Allow  me  to  introduce  you  to  a  gentleman 

of  whom  you  must  have  heard  a  great  deal,   Mr. ."     I 

replied,  "There  is  not  the  slightest  necessity  for  naming  him.  I 
know  him  well  enough.  That 's  Mr.  Pigott. " 

The  individual  in  the  capacious  fauteuil  wriggled  from  be- 
hind the  Times  an  uneasy  acknowledgment  of  my  recognition; 
but  if  anything  could  be  conducive  to  putting  completely  at  his 
ease  a  gentleman  who,  from  some  cause  or  another,  was  troubled 
in  his  mind,  it  would  have  been  the  dulcet  voice  in  which  Mr. 
Labouchere  continued:  "The  fact  is  that  Mr.  Pigott  has  come 
here,  quite  unsolicited,  to  make  a  full  confession.  I  told  him  that 
I  would  listen  to  nothing  he  had  to  say,  save  in  the  presence  of  a 
witness,  and,  remembering  that  you  lived  close  by,  I  thought  that 
you  would  not  mind  coming  here  and  listening  to  what  Mr.  Pigott 
has  to  confess,  which  will  be  taken  down,  word  by  word,  from  his 
dictation  in  writing."  It  has  been  my  lot  during  a  long  and 
diversified  career  to  have  to  listen  to  a  large  number  of  very  queer 
statements  from  very  queer  people;  and,  by  dint  of  experience, 
you  reach  at  last  a  stage  of  stoicism  when  little,  if  anything,  that 
is  imparted  to  you  excites  surprise.  Mr.  Pigott,  although  he 
had  screwed  his  courage  to  the  sticking  place  of  saying  that  he 
was  going  to  confess,  manifested  considerable  tardiness  in  orally 
"owning  up."  Conscience,  we  were  justified  in  assuming,  had 


400  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

gnawed  to  an  extent  sufficient  to  make  him  disposed  to  relieve  his 
soul  from  a  dreadful  burden ;  but  conscience,  to  all  seeming,  had 
to  gnaw  a  little  longer  and  a  little  more  sharply  ere  he  absolutely 
gave  tongue.  So  we  let  him  be  for  about  ten  minutes.  Mr. 
Labouchere  kindled  another  cigarette.  I  lighted  a  cigar. 

At  length  Mr.  Pigott  stood  up  and  came  forward  into  the 
light,  by  the  side  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  writing-table.  He  did 
not  change  colour;  he  did  not  blench;  but  when — out  of  the 
fulness  of  his  heart,  no  doubt — his  mouth  spake,  it  was  in  a  low, 
half-musing  tone,  more  at  first  as  though  he  were  talking  to 
himself  than  to  any  auditors.  By  degrees,  however,  his  voice 
rose,  his  diction  became  more  fluent.  It  is  only  necessary  that, 
in  this  place,  I  should  say  that,  in  substance,  Pigott  confessed 
that  he  had  forged  the  letters  alleged  to  have  been  written  by 
Mr.  Parnell;  and  he  minutely  described  the  manner  in  which  he, 
and  he  alone,  had  executed  the  forgeries  in  question.  Whether 
the  man  with  the  bald  head  and  the  eyeglass  in  the  library  at 
Grosvenor  Gardens  was  telling  the  truth  or  was  uttering  another 
batch  of  infernal  lies  it  is  not  for  me  to  determine.  No  pressure 
was  put  upon  him,  no  leading  questions  were  asked  him,  and  he 
went  on  quietly  and  continuously  to  the  end  of  a  story  which  I 
should  have  thought  amazing  had  I  not  had  occasion  to  hear 
many  more  tales  even  more  astounding.  He  was  not  voluble, 
but  he  was  collected,  clear,  and  coherent;  nor,  although  he  re- 
peatedly confessed  to  forgery,  fraud,  deception,  and  misrepresen- 
tation, did  he  seem  overcome  with  anything  approaching  active 
shame.  His  little  peccadilloes  were  plainly  owned,  but  he 
appeared  to  treat  them  more  as  incidental  weakness  than  as 
extraordinary  acts  of  wickedness. 

When  he  had  come  to  the  end  of  his  statement  Mr.  Labouchere 
left  the  library  for  a  few  minutes  to  obtain  a  little  refreshment. 
It  was  a  great  relief  to  me  when  he  came  back,  for,  when  Pigott 
and  I  were  left  together,  there  came  over  me  a  vague  dread  that 
he  might  disclose  his  complicity  with  the  Rye  House  Plot,  or 
that  he  would  admit  that  he  had  been  the  executioner  of  King 
Charles  I.  The  situation  was  rather  embarrasing ;  the  time  might 
have  been  tided  over  by  whistling,  but  unfortunately  I  never  learnt 
to  whistle.  It  would  have  been  rude  to  read  a  book ;  and  besides, 
to  do  so  would  have  necessitated  my  taking  my  eyes  off  Mr. 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  RICHARD  PIGOTT        401 

Pigott,  and  I  never  took  them  off  him.  We  did  get  into  conversa- 
tion, but  our  talk  was  curt  and  trite.  He  remarked,  first  taking 
up  that  so-often-conned  Times,  that  the  London  papers  were 
inconveniently  large.  This,  being  a  self-evident  proposition, 
met  with  no  response  from  me,  but  on  his  proceeding  to  say,  in 
quite  a  friendly  manner,  that  I  must  have  found  the  afternoon's 
interview  rather  stupid  work,  I  replied  that,  on  the  contrary,  so 
far  as  I  was  concerned,  I  had  found  it  equally  amusing  and 
instructive.  Then  the  frugal  Mr.  Labouchere  coming  back  with 
his  mouth  full,  we  went  to  business  again.  The  whole  of  Pigott's 
confession,  beginning  with  the  declaration  that  he  had  made  it 
uninvited  and  without  any  pecuniary  consideration,  was  read 
over  to  him  line  by  line  and  word  by  word.  He  made  no  cor- 
rection or  alteration  whatsoever.  The  confession  covered  several 
sheets  of  paper,  and  to  each  sheet  he  affixed  his  initials.  Finally, 
at  the  bottom  of  the  completed  document  he  signed  his  name 
beneath  which  I  wrote  mine  as  a  witness. x 

The  history  of  the  Commission  subsequent  to  Pigott's 
disappearance  does  not  belong  to  this  biography.  It  is 
enough  to  say  that  it  terminated  its  business  on  November 
20,  1889,  after  having  sat  no  less  than  126  times. 

On  the  8th  of  March,  eight  days  after  his  last  appearance 
in  the  witness-box,  the  news  of  Pigott's  suicide  reached 
London.  It  appeared  that  after  his  interview  with  Mr. 
Labouchere  and  Mr.  Sala,  he  treated  himself  to  an  evening's 
amusement  at  the  Alhambra  Music  Hall.  He  left  on 
Monday  morning  for  Paris,  whence  he  posted  the  envelope 
containing  his  confession  and  other  enclosures  to  Mr.  Shan- 
non. He  reached  Madrid  on  Thursday,  where  he  put  up  at 
the  H6tel  des  Ambassadeurs,  and  spent  the  afternoon  and 
following  morning  in  visiting  the  churches  and  picture 
galleries.  He  would  not  have  been  tracked  so  quickly  by 
the  detectives  if  he  had  not  sent  a  wire  to  Mr.  Shannon — the 
Dublin  solicitor  who  had  assisted  Mr.  Soames — asking  for 
the  money  "you  promised  me,"  which  gave  the  clue  to  his 

1  Life  of  Sala,  written  by  himself,  voL  ii. 

16 


402  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

whereabouts.  On  the  following  afternoon,  when  he  was 
informed  by  the  hotel  interpreter  that  a  police  officer  wanted 
him,  he  retired  to  his  bedroom  and  shot  himself  through  the 
brain. z 

Richard  Pigott  had  one  redeeming  feature  in  his  character 
— unless  his  complete  lack  of  self -consciousness  in  evil  doing 
be  counted  as  another — an  intense  love  for  his  motherless 
children.  There  were  four  of  these.  Mr.  Labouchere's 
compassion  for  the  wretched  man  had  early  been  aroused 
in  connection  with  the  really  pathetic  state  of  his  domestic 
affairs,  and,  although  his  "underground"  relations  with 
Pigott  prevented  him  from  being  able  to  promise  definitely 
to  give  him  any  assistance  for  his  children  in  the  event  of  the 
Times  or  Parnell  prosecuting  him  as  a  consequence  of  his 
confession,  it  is  easily  to  be  imagined  that  Pigott  would  have 
perceived  during  his  visits  to  Grosvenor  Gardens  the  extra- 
ordinary tenderness  of  feeling  that  Mr.  Labouchere  could 
never  conceal  where  there  was  a  question  of  any  suffering  to 
be  saved  to  a  child.  In  his  examination  by  Sir  Charles  Rus- 
sell Mr.  Labouchere  had  said :  "  Pigott  said  to  me,  '  I  shall  go 
to  prison,  but  perhaps  I  am  better  there  than  anywhere  else ; 
the  only  thing  I  regret  is  the  position  of  my  children,  who  will 
starve.'  I  said:  'Well,  I  think  they  won't  starve,  or  any- 
thing of  that  sort,  but  if  you  want  me  to  make  any  terms 
about  your  children,  you  must  not  expect  it  from  me." 
Poor  puzzled  Pigott!  He  had  done  everything  he  could  to 
please  every  one  round  him,  and  yet  he  could  get  no  one  at 
this  crisis  to  do  the  one  thing  that  would  have  set  his  flutter- 
ing mind  at  ease.  No  one  would  promise  to  befriend  the 
four  little  boys  at  Kingstown.  Truly,  as  he  had  told  Mr. 
Labouchere,  he  was  in  a  terrible  mess. 

But  as  soon  as  the  poor  fellow  was  dead,  and  his  motives 
could  no  longer  be  impugned  by  the  vigilant  Tories,  Mr. 
Labouchere  set  himself  with  energy  to  see  that  the  children 
were  cared  for.  He  sent  a  friend  to  Kingstown  to  report  to 

1  Macdonald,  Diary  of  the  Parnell  Commission. 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  RICHARD  PIGOTT        403 

him  on  the  condition  of  the  orphans,  and  she  wrote  to  him  as 
follows:  "I  had  a  long  chat  with  the  housekeeper  who  is  to 
my  mind  an  excellent  woman.  A  more  self-forgetful 
creature  I  never  saw,  and  nobody  ever  wrapped  truths  in 
softer  garments.  She  pitied  her  master.  She  says  that 
Pigott  adored  these  children,  and  that  it  was  his  desire  to 
give  them  comforts  and  education  which  drove  him  into  such 
crimes.  I  do  hope  that  something  will  be  done  for  these 
poor  friendless  children,  to  whom  the  father  was  a  most 
indulgent  parent.  I  saw  lying  in  the  room  little  toy  yachts 
and  tricycles,  bearing  evidence  that  there  was  softness  as 
well  as  weakness  in  the  character  of  the  dead  man.  The  only 
relative  that  the  housekeeper  knows  of  is  an  uncle,  who  holds 
a  good  position  under  the  Government.  She  wrote  to  him 
and  got  no  reply."  A  fund  was  started  for  the  benefit  of 
the  children,  and  in  the  pages  of  Truth  Mr.  Labouchere 
pleaded  their  cause  with  eloquence.  In  May  Archbishop 
Walsh  wrote  to  him  as  follows: 


4  RUTLAND  SQUARE, 
DUBLIN,  May  23,  1889. 

DEAR  MR.  LABOUCHERE, — There  are  two  ways  in  which  effect 
can  be  given  to  your  charitable  purpose.  The  trust  can  be 
executed  direct  through  me,  or  I  can  arrange  to  have  the  matter 
carried  out  by  the  parish  priests  of  the  place  where  Pigott  lived — 
Glasthule  close  by  Kingstown,  Dublin.  I  may  say  to  you  that 
two  generous  offers  were  made  to  me  immediately  after  the 
suicide.  One  was  a  proposal  to  take  charge  of  the  two  elder 
boys  with  a  view  to  their  emigration  to  the  U.  S.  or  Canada,  where 
something  would  be  done  to  give  them  a  fair  start.  The  other 
was  an  offer  to  take  one  of  the  younger  children  and  practically 
to  provide  for  this  little  fellow  by  an  informal  adoption. 

In  both  cases  I  pointed  out  that  there  is,  I  fear,  a  serious 
difficulty  in  the  way  of  my  interfering  in  any  prominent  way  in 
the  case,  and  indeed  in  the  interference  of  anyone  who  is  an 
active  sympathizer  (as  was  the  case  in  the  two  offers)  with  Home 
Rule,  etc. 


404  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

The  Liberal  Unionists  of  Dublin  who  brought  the  unfortunate 
father  into  temptation  have  a  heavy  responsibility  towards  the 
poor  children.  It  is  worse  than  mean  of  them  to  shirk  it.  But 
they  not  only  shirk  it,  they  try  to  throw  the  responsibility  on  to 
the  other  side.  The  insinuation  made  by  many  of  them  is  that 
Pigott  was  got  out  of  the  country  by  sympathizers  with  Mr. 
Parnell,  and  that  the  suicide  even  may  have  been  managed  for  a 
consideration. 

A  very  serious  question  then  arises  as  to  what  can  be  prudently 
done  in  the  case  of  the  children.  Of  course  they  must  not  be 
neglected.  But,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  there  is  no  present  danger  on 
that  score.  The  two  elder  boys  are  at  school  at  Clongowes,  a 
high-class  school  for  lay  pupils,  conducted  by  the  Jesuit  Fathers. 
Their  schoolfellows  have,  throughout  the  whole  case,  shown  a 
splendid  spirit  towards  them.  The  two  younger  boys  are  safely 
placed  in  charge  of  the  former  housekeeper  in  a  place  where  they 
are  not  known,  not  far  from  Dublin. 

My  advice  would  be  to  let  matters  lie  until  the  school  holiday 
time  comes  on,  about  the  beginning  of  July. 

In  the  meantime  I  shall  communicate  with  the  persons  who 
made  the  offers  of  which  I  have  told  you. 

When  the  case  comes  to  be  dealt  with,  I  should  suggest  that 
the  best  way  to  act  would  be  through  Canon  Harold,  the  parish 
priest. 

Meanwhile  should  not  something  be  done  through  the  news- 
papers to  work  up  the  call,  which  can  be  most  legitimately  made, 
on  the  Irish  Liberal  Unionists  to  do  at  all  events  something 
really  substantial  in  the  case? — I  remain,  dear  Mr.  Labouchere, 
faithfully  yours, 

WILLIAM  WALSH,  Archbishop  of  Dublin. 

The  statement  of  Dr.  Walsh  that  there  were  people  in 
Dublin  who  insinuated  that  Pigott  had  been  got  out  of  the 
country  by  the  friends  of  the  Nationalists  seems  almost 
incredible,  but  it  is  a  fact  that,  even  in  England,  in  country 
places,  lectures  were  given,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Prim- 
rose League,  to  persuade  rural  voters,  who  might  have  been 
reading  the  newspapers,  that  the  forgery  of  the  Pigott  letters 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  RICHARD  PIGOTT        405 

had  never  been  proved,  and  even  more  ridiculous  statements 
were  made  in  some  places.  Mr.  Labouchere  wrote  in  Truth 
on  March  7: 

I  feel  it  my  duty  solemnly  to  affirm  that  (incredible  as  it  may 
appear  to  Primrose  Dames)  I  did  not  bribe  Pigott  to  commit 
suicide  by  promising  him  an  annuity.  It  is  somewhat  fortunate 
for  me  that  I  can  prove  an  alibi ;  otherwise  I  make  no  doubt  that 
I  should  have  been  accused  of  having  been  concealed  in  Pigott's 
room  at  Madrid,  and  having  shot  him.  Well,  well,  I  suppose  that 
allowance  must  be  made  for  the  crew  of  idiots  who  have  gone 
about  vowing  that  the  Times  forgeries  were  genuine  letters,  and 
who  are  now  grovelling  in  the  mire  that  they  have  prepared  for 
themselves. 

Nothing  can  exceed  my  sorrow  that  we  were  not  privileged  to 
hear  in  court  the  evidence  of  the  expert  in  handwriting,  Inglis. 
So  great,  indeed,  is  my  regret  that  I  will  willingly  (if  the  Times 
is  in  want  of  money)  pay  the  sum  of  £20  for  his  "  proof. "  I  have 
always  regarded  these  experts  as  the  most  dreary  of  humbugs, 
and  in  this  view  I  am  now  confirmed.  I  myself  subjected  the 
photographs  of  the  Times  forgeries  to  the  limelight  in  a  magic- 
lantern,  and  I  soon  discovered  that  there  were  signs  of  tracing. 
In  some  of  the  words — and  particularly  in  the  signatures — there 
is  a  small  white  line,  where  the  ink  had  not  taken  over  the  tracing. 
If  Inglis  had  done  the  same,  he  would  not  probably  have  made 
so  ridiculous  a  fool  of  himself. 

It  must  be  owned  that  Mr.  Labouchere  made  himself 
exceedingly  annoying  in  the  pages  of  Truth  on  the  subject 
of  the  forged  letters.  His  taunts  and  scathing  witticisms 
at  the  expense  of  the  prosecuting  side  and  Messrs.  Soames, 
Houston  &  Co.  were  almost  past  enduring,  and  more  than 
one  apology  was  furiously  demanded  of  him,  to  which  he 
usually  replied  by  heaping  more  ridicule  on  the  unfortunate, 
writhing  victim.  Some  abortive  attempts  were  made  to  hoax 
him  and  make  a  fool  of  him  as  he  succeeded  so  frequently 
in  doing  of  others.  In  the  winter  of  1889  a  somewhat 
unpleasant  case  was  brought  before  the  Central  Criminal 


406  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

Court,  the  only  event  of  public  interest  connected  with 
which  was  the  departure  from  England  of  a  well-known 
nobleman  on  the  very  eve  of  the  day  that  the  warrant  was 
issued  for  his  arrest,  and  it  was  in  connection  with  this  affair 
that  someone  tried  to  put  salt  on  Labby's  tail.  Whoever 
the  joker  was  he  must  have  felt  rather  sold  when  he  read 
the  following  paragraph  in  the  next  issue  of  Labby's  journal ; 

I  have  received  through  the  post  the  following  letter  and 
enclosure.  Evidently  someone  is  attempting  to  Pigott  me.  I 
do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  letters  are  not  from  those  by 
whom  they  profess  to  be  written.  It  is  really  shameful  that  two 
such  good  men  and  true  as  Lord  Salisbury  and  Mr.  Houston 
should  be  selected  for  this  reprehensible  hoax. 

PRIMROSE  LEAGUE  CENTRAL  OFFICES, 
VICTORIA  STREET. 

SIR,  I  enclose  you  an  autograph  letter  of  Lord  Salisbury.  I 
obtained  it  from  a  man  of  the  name  of  Hammond,  whom  I 
promised  to  reward  if  he  could  get  me  any  letters  likely  to  injure 
the  character  of  Tory  leaders.  He  tells  me  that  a  client  of  his 
in  Cleveland  Street  called  upon  him  and  produced  it  from  a  black 
bag.  I  have  already  offered  the  letter  to  Lord  Hartington  and 
to  the  Editor  of  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  but  they  have  both  declined 
to  have  anything  to  do  with  it.  If  you  use  it  I  must  request 
you  to  send  me  a  cheque  for  £1000,  and  you  must  pledge  yourself 
never  to  give  up  the  name  of  Hammond.  He  is  a  very  worthy 
man,  and  he  fears  that  if  it  were  known  that  he  had  given  me  the 
letter  some  Tory  would  shoot  him. — Your  obedient  servant, 

E.  C.  HOUSTON. 

(Enclosure) 

HATFIELD  HOUSE,  Oct.,  17. 

MY  DEAR  LORD***, — There  is  a  good  deal  of  evidence  against 
you,  although  the  Lord  Chancellor  and  the  Attorney-General 
have  decided  that  the  evidence  of  identity  is  not  sufficient,  but 
I  hear  a  rumour  that  more  evidence  can  be  obtained.  I  can  count 
upon  the  Chancellor  standing  to  his  guns,  but  I  am  not  quite 
so  sure  of  Webster.  He,  you  know,  will  have  to  answer  that 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  RICHARD  PIGOTT        407 

scoundrel  Labouchere  in  the  House  of  Commons,  when  he  brings 
on  the  subject  and  he  is  getting  shaky.  Perhaps  he  will  be 
forced  to  issue  a  warrant. — Yours  very  truly, 

SALISBURY. 

Another  hoax  practised  on  Mr.  Labouchere  came  off, 
and  a  considerable  time  elapsed  before  the  perpetrator  of  it 
was  discovered.  He  eventually  turned  out  to  be  a  member 
of  one  of  the  most  staid  and  respectable  clubs  in  London. 
Here  is  the  story  of  the  hoax,  as  Mr.  Labouchere  related  it 
in  Truth: 

During  the  last  few  weeks  I  have  received  a  number  of  anony- 
mous letters,  all  in  the  same  handwriting,  couched  in  terms  the 
reverse  of  complimentary.  Some  of  them  were  on  the  paper  of 
the  East  India  United  Service  Club,  St.  James's  Square.  This 
did  not  trouble  me,  as  I  receive  so  many  of  such  letters  that  I 
am  accustomed  to  them.  On  Thursday  last,  however,  my  anony- 
mous friend  sent  orders  signed  in  my  name  to  a  number  of  trades- 
men desiring  them  to  send  me  goods.  He  ordered  two  hearses 
each  with  two  mourning  coaches,  and  requested  a  representative  of 
the  cremation  company  to  call  and  arrange  for  my  cremation.  He 
also  ordered  a  marriage  cake  of  Messrs.  Buzzard,  a  bed  of  Messrs. 
Shoolbred.  furniture  of  Messrs.  Maple,  Messrs.  Druce,and  Messrs. 
Barker  &  Co. ;  coal  of  Messrs.  Whiteley,  Ricketts,  Herbert  Clarke 
&  Co.;  Cockerell  &  Lee;  a  coat  of  Mr.  Cording,  caps  of  Messrs. 
Lincoln  &  Bennett,  a  billiard  table  of  Messrs.  Thurston,  prints 
of  Messrs.  Clifford,  carpets  of  Messrs.  Swan  &  Edgar,  beer,  spirits, 
and  wine  from  several  firms,  some  of  which  was  delivered,  and  a 
vast  number  of  other  goods  from  West  End  houses,  including  an 
umbilical  belt  for  hernia  from  a  city  firm.  He  also  sent  letters 
to  various  physicians  in  my  name,  and  they  have  favoured  me 
in  reply  with  prescriptions  for  divers  diseases.  He  further 
engaged  cabins  for  me  to  India  and  to  the  United  States.  Not 
content  with  this  he  ordered  a  salmon  to  be  sent  in  my  name  to 
Mr.  Gladstone,  a  Stilton  cheese  to  Sir  William  Harcourt,  a 
travelling  bag  to  Mr.  Asquith,  and  a  haunch  of  venison  to  Sir 
George  Trevelyan.  And  he  supplemented  these  liberal  orders 


4o8  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

by  issuing  invitations  in  the  name  of  a  mythical  niece  to  a  party 
at  Twickenham  and  a  dinner  at  my  London  house.  All  this  is 
far  more  annoying  to  the  tradesmen  than  it  is  to  me,  and  I  would 
therefore  suggest  to  my  friend  to  revert  to  his  old  plan  of  anony- 
mous letters.  Neither  of  the  hearses  came,  owing  to  representa- 
tives of  the  firms  having  called  to  know  how  many  men  would  be 
required  to  carry  my  corpse  downstairs.  Had  the  hearse  arrived 
it  would  have  been  curious,  as  the  mutes  would  probably  have 
disputed  in  which  I  was  to  be  moved  off,  and  would  have  had  to 
appeal  to  me  eating  my  marriage  cake  and  arrayed  in  my 
umbilical  belt  to  decide  to  which  I  would  give  my  preference. 


CHAPTER  XV 
MR.  LABOUCHERE  NOT  INCLUDED   IN  THE  CABINET 

THERE  is  no  doubt  about  the  fact  that  Mr.  Labouchere 
was  always  at  his  best  when  he  was  in  Opposition.  This 
characteristic  was  not  peculiar  to  him,  but  was  shared  by 
Sir  William  Harcourt,  and,  in  a  marked  degree,  by  Lord 
Randolph  Churchill.  During  the  six  years  of  Lord  Salis- 
bury's second  administration  (August,  i886-August,  1892), 
he  stood  out  prominently  as  a  man  of  ability  and  independent 
courage  in  what  was  an  extremely  weak  and  inefficient 
Opposition.  Always  true  to  his  Radical  principles,  he 
protested  ably  whenever  the  questions  of  Civil  Service 
estimates  were  to  the  fore — the  expenses  incurred  in  the 
removal  or  restoration  of  diplomatic  and  consular  buildings, 
or  in  the  organisation  of  missions  and  embassies  to  foreign 
countries,  all  the  involved  expenditure  that  is  comprehended 
under  the  term,  so  mysterious  to  the  lay  mind,  of  "miscel- 
laneous legal  buildings,"  in  the  upkeep  of  the  royal  parks 
and  palaces.  The  annual  expenditure  for  the  warming  and 
lighting  of  Kew  Palace  especially  aroused  his  ire.  He  had, 
he  said,  hunted  for  the  building  and  at  last  perceived  over  an 
iron  gate  a  tumble  down,  depressed-looking  house  in  which 
he  could  not  imagine  that  anyone  less  insane  than  George  III. 
in  his  later  years  could  be  expected  to  wish  to  reside,  and  if 
there  were  any  such,  they  might,  at  least,  warm  and  light 
themselves  without  any  application  to  the  British  taxpayer. 
As  for  Kensington  Palace,  to  vote  an  annual  sum  for  its 

409 


410  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

maintenance  was  merely  dropping  water  into  a  bottomless 
well.  It  was  dilapidated  and  useless.  Why  not  pull  it  down 
or  turn  it  into  a  large  restaurant — an  investment  which 
would  certainly  pay — and  put  money  into  the  taxpayer's 
pockets  for  a  change?  Of  course  he  should  advocate  that 
only  temperance  drinks  should  be  sold  upon  the  premises, 
but  even  with  that  restriction  a  profit  would  be  certain. 
Then  he  would  attack  the  extravagance  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  Oil  lamps  hi  the  committee  rooms!  Were 
Ministers  a  species  of  patron  saints  before  whom  perpetual 
lamps  had  to  be  kept  burning  in  order  to  secure  their  favours? 
Electric  light  had  been  installed  in  the  House,  and  yet  the 
annual  sum  spent  on  oil  lamps  was  undiminished.  Perhaps, 
replied  the  long-suffering  Mr.  Plunkett,  after  the  expenditure 
on  oil  had  been  ruthlessly  gone  into  and  shown  to  be  super- 
fluous, the  hon.  member  for  Northampton  will  soon  be  a 
Minister  himself  and  will  then  know  the  awkwardness  of 
attending  in  the  House  from  three  in  the  afternoon  to  one 
in  the  morning  and  having  to  turn  up  or  down  an  oil  lamp 
every  time  he  went  from  one  room  to  another.  In  short, 
Mr.  Labouchere's  obstructionary  tactics  were  magnificent. 
His  speeches  on  the  Triple  Alliance  were  marked  by  an 
intimate  knowledge  of  European  politics  acquired  by  a  long 
and  sympathetic  frequentation  of  the  best  politicians  in 
Europe  and  as  different  as  possible  from  the  accumulation  of 
facts  out  of  text-books  which  formed  the  mental  equipment 
on  the  subject  of  many  of  his  colleagues.  The  point  of 
departure  of  his  first  speech  on  the  Triple  Alliance  was  a 
statement  made  in  the  Italian  Parliament  on  May  14,  1891, 
by  a  deputy  named  Chiala  to  the  effect  that  the  Italian 
position  was  now  secure  by  land  and  sea,  English  interests 
being  identical  with  Italian.  On  June  2,  1891,  he  asked 
Sir  James  Fergusson  whether  special  undertakings  were 
entered  into  in  1887  between  England  and  Italy  of  such 
importance  as  to  justify  Signer  Chiala's  remark,  which  had 
met  with  no  challenge  in  the  Italian  Chamber,  and  he  spoke 


EXCLUSION  FROM  THE  CABINET  411 

with  characteristic  eloquence  both  then  and  on  July  9, 
against  the  renewal  of  the  Triple  Alliance,  which  obliged 
England,  he  said,  to  side  with  Italy  against  France,  under 
the  pretext  of  maintaining  the  status  quo  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean. Mr.  Gladstone  wrote  him  the  following  letter  on 
the  subject: 

HAWAROEN  CA.STLE,  CHESTER,  July  n,  1891. 

DEAR  MR.  LABOUCHERE, — So  far  as  I  can  understand  I 
think  you  have  left  the  question  of  the  Triple  Alliance  and  our 
relation  to  it  standing  well  in  itself  and  well  for  us.  If  ever  there 
was  a  complication  from  which  England  ought  to  stand  absolutely 
aloof  it  is  this.  I  would  take  for  a  proof  apart  from  all  others  the 
astounding  letter  of  Mr.  Stead  in  yesterday's  Pall  Mall  Gazette, 
who  founds  an  European  policy  on  the  isolation  of  France  still 
perhaps  at  the  head  of  continental  civilisation.  I  fear  with  you 
that  Salisbury  has  given  virtual  pledges  for  himself  which  in  all 
likelihood  he  will  never  even  be  called  upon  to  redeem,  and  which 
Parliament  and  members  of  Parliament  may  with  perfect  pro- 
priety object  to  his  redeeming.  What  a  little  surprises  me  is 
that  the  Italians  should  not  better  understand  the  frailty  of 
the  foundation  on  which  I  fear  they  have  built  their  hopes. 

In  the  Daily  News  yesterday  Mr.  White  says  the  alliance  was 
first  concluded  in  1882.  If  so  it  was  certainly  without  our  appro- 
bation, I  think  without  our  knowledge. — Yours  faithfully, 

W.  E.  GLADSTONE. 

In  Mr.  Labouchere's  attacks  on  Lord  Salisbury's  Foreign 
Office  adminstration,  he  found  many  of  the  opportunities 
which  he  loved  of  pouring  ridicule  upon  the  whole  institution 
of  diplomacy.  He  told  the  Committee,  during  the  discus- 
sion on  the  Foreign  Office  vote,  how  the  service  is  recruited. 
A  friend  of  his,  he  said,  who  reached  the  top  of  his  profession, 
presented  himself  for  examination.  Of  the  questions  put 
before  him  he  could  answer  none,  being  completely  ignorant 
of  the  subjects  upon  which  they  were  supposed  to  test  him. 
Great  was  his  surprise  when  the  results  of  the  examination 


412  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

were  made  known.  He  found  himself  not  only  passed  but 
at  the  top  of  the  list  of  candidates.  "How  can  these  things 
be?  "  he  asked  the  examiner  when  he  next  met  him.  "Well, " 
replied  the  great  man,  "we  saw  you  knew  nothing,  but  your 
manner  was  so  free  from  constraint  under  what  to  some  peo- 
ple would  have  been  embarrassing  circumstances,  that  we 
decided :  '  That 's  the  very  man  to  make  a  diplomatist, ' 
and  so  we  passed  you. "  That  this  little  anecdote  was  intro- 
duced to  the  notice  of  Sir  James  Fergusson  as  a  prelude  to 
Mr.  Labouchere's  bland  explanation  that,  according  to  his 
personal  experience,  Under-Secretaries  for  Foreign  Affairs 
and  members  of  the  diplomatic  body  generally  were  of  all 
men  the  most  ignorant,  did  not  rob  it  of  any  of  its  sting. 
Across  the  Channel,  Mr.  Labouchere's  abilities,  where  foreign 
politics  were  concerned,  were  rated  at  their  true  value.  In 
February,  1892,  the  Voltaire  published  a  long  article  dealing 
with  the  personality  of  this  "remarkable  man  "  and  his  know- 
ledge of  European  affairs,  which  concluded  with  these  words : 
"Mr.  Labouchere  is  one  of  those  grand  Englishmen  who  do 
credit  both  to  the  party  which  they  defend  and  to  the  party 
which  they  condescend  to  attack.  Moreover,  shortly  he 
will  be  a  member  of  the  Cabinet,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  depends 
on  his  co-operation  to  finish  the  last  struggle  with  the  dying 
Tory  party. " 

That  Mr.  Labouchere's  name  was  not  included  in  Mr. 
Gladstone's  Cabinet  of  1892  was  an  omission  that  struck 
not  only  European  politicians  but  the  public  of  England,  both 
Conservative  and  Radical,  as  curious.  Mr.  Gladstone,  who 
had  intended  him  to  have  one  of  the  most  important  offices 
in  the  Cabinet  (not  the  Post  Office,  as  has  been  so  often 
asserted),  was  himself  taken  aback,  and  so  much  so  that 
when  he  was  made  aware  that  the  Queen  would  object  to 
Mr.  Labouchere's  name  being  submitted  to  her,  he  went  the 
length  of  privately  asking  Mr.  Labouchere  to  write  him  a 
letter  stating  that  he  should  not  accept  office  were  it  offered 
to  him.  Had  Mr.  Labouchere  been  under  the  necessity  of 


EXCLUSION  FROM  THE  CABINET  413 

wishing  to  improve  his  political  position  in  the  country,  there 
is  no  doubt  that  this  would  have  been  his  opportunity  for 
doing  so.  Such  a  course  of  action  would  have  appeared  to 
the  superficial  observer  to  fit  in  with  his  Radical  principles, 
and  he  could  have  pretended  to  his  followers  that  he  con- 
sidered his  power  greater  below  the  gangway  than  on  the 
pedestal  of  office,  and  (a  matter,  however,  which  was  of 
supreme  indifference  to  him)  his  enemies  could  not  have 
pointed  the  finger  of  scorn  at  him.  Incidentally,  too,  Mr. 
Gladstone  would  have  been  saved  from  an  imputation  of 
ingratitude  to  a  follower  who  had  stood  by  him,  through 
thick  and  thin,  to  win  the  cause  that  the  Grand  Old  Man 
had  nearest  his  heart,  to  wit,  Home  Rule  for  Ireland,  and 
a  follower,  who,  throughout  a  long  and  original  political 
career,  had  never  once  failed  towards  his  leader  in  any  detail 
of  the  minutiae  that  went  to  make  up  the  etiquette  of  political 
intercourse  in  the  last  century.  But,  as  Mr.  Labouchere 
explained  to  a  near  relative  at  the  time,  he  could  n  't  stand 
the  humbug  of  the  suggestion,  and  he  would,  moreover,  have 
been  pledged  to  support  the  Ministry.  Besides,  that  the 
Queen  should  have  objected  to  him  was  not  a  surprise. 
Nobody  was  able  to  appreciate  better  than  himself,  with  his 
tolerant  view  of  human  nature,  the  fact  that  tastes  differ, 
and  to  realise  more  fully  that,  in  so  far  as  personal  feelings 
went,  he  might  very  easily  be  a  persona  ingrata  where  Court 
favour  was  concerned.  "So  that  the  good  ship  Democracy 
sails  prosperously  into  Joppa, "  he  wrote  at  the  time,  "I 
care  not  whether  my  berth  is  in  the  officers'  quarters  or  in 
the  forecastle.  Jones  or  Jonah  it  is  all  the  same  to  me,  and 
if  I  thought  that  my  being  thrown  overboard  would  render 
the  success  of  the  voyage  more  certain,  overboard  I  would  go 
with  pleasure — all  the  more  as  I  can  swim."  But,  in  his 
surmise  as  to  why  the  Queen  had  objected  to  him  he  was  mis- 
taken, and  he  did  not  know  the  real  reason  until  several 
years  afterwards.  He  imagined  it  was  because  he  had  so 
persistently  protested  against  the  Royal  grants,  whenever 


4i4  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

they  had  appeared  to  him  excessive. T  It  is  difficult  to  see 
why  Mr.  Gladstone,  having  told  him  as  much  as  he  did,  did 
not  tell  him  more — to  wit,  the  actual  facts.  It  would  have 
been  perfectly  straightforward  and  perfectly  consistent,  and 
the  explanation  was  one  that  Mr.  Labouchere  could  have 
accepted  with  dignity,  and  all  appearance  of  a  slight  put 
upon  an  eminent  politician,  by  treating  him  as  a  nobody 
to  be  passed  over  without  any  kind  of  justification,  would 
have  been  avoided.  The  fact  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  being 
the  proprietor  of  and  "chief  writer"  in  Truth  was  the  ground 
of  the  Queen's  objection,  and  if  my  readers  have  followed 
the  course  of  this  biography  with  care,  they  will  very  easily 
be  able  to  imagine  how  early,  and  also  how  very  reasonably, 
the  Queen's  dislike  to  the  publication  had  taken  root. 

Mr.  Labouchere's  jest  about  Mr.  Gladstone  laying  upon 
Providence  the  responsibility  of  always  placing  the  ace  of 
trumps  up  his  sleeve  was  a  good  one.  In  one  of  his  private 
letters  I  find  the  quip  worded  a  little  more  pungently. 
"Who  cannot  refrain,"  he  says,  referring  to  the  then  Prime 
Minister,  "from  perpetually  bringing  an  ace  down  his  sleeve, 
even  when  he  has  only  to  play  fair  to  win  the  trick. "  Clearly 
in  the  case  of  the  exclusion  of  Mr.  Labouchere  from  his 
Cabinet,  Mr.  Gladstone  had  only  to  play  a  simple  and 
straightforward  game  for  the  trick  to  be  his.  In  fact,  it 
was  his  with  the  Queen.  There  was  no  necessity  for  any 
further  ruse,  and  the  matter  would  have  ended. 

1  The  following  paragraph  from  one  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  Draft  Reports, 
composed  when  he  was  member  of  a  committee  to  investigate  the  whole 
question  of  Royal  grants  in  1891,  shows  how  reasonable  this  surmise  was: 

"In  conclusion,  your  Committee  desires  to  record  its  emphatic  opinion, 
that  the  cost  of  the  maintenance  of  the  Members  of  the  Royal  Family  is 
already  so  great,  that  under  no  circumstances  should  it  be  increased.  In  its 
opinion,  a  majority  of  Her  Majesty's  subjects  regard  the  present  cost  of 
Royalty  as  excessive,  and  it  deems  it,  therefore,  most  undesirable  to  prejudice 
any  decisions  that  may  be  taken  in  regard  to  this  cost,  when  the  entire  subject 
will  come  under  the  cognisance  of  Parliament,  by  granting,  either  directly 
or  indirectly,  allowances  or  annuities  to  any  of  the  grandchildren  of  the 
Sovereign." 


EXCLUSION  FROM  THE  CABINET  415 

Mr.  Labouchere,  still  in  the  dark  about  the  reason  of  the 
slight  put  upon  him,  replied  thus  to  one  of  his  supporters  at 
Northampton,  who  questioned  him  as  to  the  fact  that  he 
was  not  included  in  the  Cabinet.  He  seems  to  have 
made  an  effort  to  put  the  matter  as  well  as  he  could  for  his 
leader: 

5  OLD  PALACE  YARD,  Aug.  19,  1892. 

DEAR  MR.  TONSLEY, — The  Queen  expressed  so  strong  a  feel- 
ing against  me  as  one  of  her  Ministers  that,  as  I  understand  it, 
Mr.  Gladstone  did  not  think  it  desirable  to  submit  my  name  to 
her. — Yours  truly, 

HENRY  LABOUCHERE. 

The  following  correspondence  ensued.  In  reading  it, 
it  must  always  be  borne  in  mind  that  Mr.  Labouchere  did 
not  at  that  time  know  the  precise  grounds  upon  which  he 
had  been  excluded  from  the  Cabinet : 

Mr.  Gladstone  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

HAWARDEN  CASTLE,  Aug.  22,  1892. 

DEAR  MR.  LABOUCHERE, — My  attention  has  been  called  to 
a  letter  addressed  by  you  to  Mr.  Tonsley,  and  printed  in  the 
Times  of  to-day,  and  I  have  to  assure  you  that  the  understanding 
which  has  been  conveyed  to  you  is  not  correct.  I  am  alone 
responsible  for  recommendations  submitted  to  Her  Majesty 
respecting  the  tenure  of  political  office,  or  of  the  absence  of  such 
recommendation  in  any  given  instance.  I  was  aware  of  the  high 
position  you  had  created  for  yourself  in  the  House  of  Commons 
and  of  the  presumption  which  would  naturally  arise  that  your 
name  could  not  fail  to  be  considered  on  any  occasion  when  a 
Government  had  to  be  formed.  I  gave  accordingly  my  best 
consideration  to  the  subject,  and  I  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that 
there  were  incidents  in  your  case  which,  while  they  testified  to 
your  energy  and  influence,  were  in  no  degree  disparaging  to  your 
honour,  but  which  appeared  to  me  to  render  it  unfit  that  I  should 
ask  your  leave  to  submit  your  name  to  Her  Majesty  for  a  political 


416  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

office  which  would  involve  your  becoming  a  servant  of  the  Crown. 
— Believe  me  very  faithfully  yours, 

W.  E.  GLADSTONE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Gladstone 

5  OLD  PALACE  YARD,  Aug.  23,  1892. 

DEAR  MR.  GLADSTONE, — I  beg  to  acknowledge  your  letter  of 
yesterday's  date,  and  to  thank  you  for  its  kindly  tone  towards 
myself.  I  had  been  away  from  home,  and  only  got  it  when  it  was 
too  late  to  alter  anything  that  I  had  written  for  this  week's 
Truth  upon  the  matter,  as  the  paper  goes  to  press  on  Tuesday 
at  12  o'clock.  I  feel  sure  that  you  will  recognise  that  I  have 
never  asked  you — directly  or  indirectly — for  any  post  in  your 
administration.  I  should  indeed  not  have  alluded  publicly  to  the 
the  matter,  owing  to  its  personal  character,  had  it  not  been  that 
the  newspapers  were  discussing  why  I  was  not  asked  to  become  a 
member  of  your  administration,  the  implication  being  that  I  had 
urged  "claims,"  and  that  I  resented  their  being  ignored.  I 
fully  perceive  the  difficulty  of  your  position,  and,  whilst  I  can- 
not admit  that  the  Sovereign  has  a  right  to  impose  any  veto  on 
the  Prime  Minister  that  she  has  selected  in  the  choice  of  his 
colleagues,  I  admire  your  chivalry  in  covering  the  Royal  action  by 
assuming  the  constitutional  responsibility  of  a  proceeding,  in 
regard  to  which  I  must  ask  you  to  allow  me  to  retain  the  con- 
viction that  you  were  not  a  free  agent. 

With  respect  to  myself,  it  is  a  matter  of  absolute  unimportance 
that  I  am  not  a  servant  of  the  Crown,  or — as  we  Radicals  should 
put  it — an  Executive  servant  of  the  Nation.  The  precedent, 
however,  is  a  dangerous  one,  as  circumstances  might  occur  in 
which  the  Royal  ostracism  of  some  particular  person  from  the 
public  service  might  impair  the  efficiency  of  a  Liberal  Ministry 
representing  views  not  in  accordance  with  Court  opinion.  Of 
this  there  is  no  danger  in  the  present  case.  My  personality  is 
too  insignificant  to  have  any  influence  on  public  affairs,  and  I  am 
— if  I  may  be  allowed  to  say  so — far  too  stalwart  a  Radical  not 
to  support  an  administration  which  I  trust  will  secure  to  us 
Home  Rule  in  Ireland ;  true  non-intervention  abroad ;  and  many 
democratic  reforms  in  the  United  Kingdom.  My  only  regret 


EXCLUSION  FROM  THE  CABINET  417 

is  that  the  Liberal  party  has  not  seen  its  way  to  include  many 
other  and  more  drastic  reforms  in  its  programme,  notably  the 
abolition  of  the  House  of  Lords  and  the  Disendowment  and 
Disestablishment  of  the  Church  of  England. 

It  will  always  be  a  source  of  pride  to  me  that  you  thought  me 
worthy  of  being  one  of  your  colleagues,  and  that,  in  regard  to  the 
incidents  which  rendered  it  impossible  for  you  to  act  in  accordance 
with  this  flattering  opinion,  you  consider  that  they  testify  to 
my  energy  and  influence,  and  are  in  no  way  disparaging  to  my 
honour. 

With  the  sincerest  hope  that  you  may  long  be  preserved 
as  the  People's  Minister,  I  have  the  honour  to  be  yours  most 
faithfully, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Gladstone  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

HAWARDEN  CASTLE,  Aug.  25,  1892. 

DEAR  MR.  LABOUCHERE, — I  cannot  hesitate  to  answer  your 
appeal.  At  no  time  and  in  no  form  have  I  had  from  you  any  signi- 
fication of  a  desire  for  office.  You  do  me  personally  more  than 
justice.  My  note  to  you  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  true 
and  succinct  statement  of  the  facts  as  well  as  the  constitutional 
doctrine  which  applies  to  them.  I  quite  agree  with  you  that 
men  in  office  are  the  political  servants  of  the  country,  as  well  as 
of  the  Crown.  There  are  incidents  attaching  to  them  in  each 
aspect,  and  I  mentioned  the  capacity  which  alone  touched  the 
case  before  me. — Believe  me  very  faithfully  yours, 

W.  E.  GLADSTONE. 

It  would  be  idle  to  deny  that  the  fact  of  not  being  in  the 
Cabinet  was,  temporarily,  a  very  great  disappointment  to 
Mr.  Labouchere.  Faithful  Northampton  forwarded  to  him, 
through  the  Executive  of  their  Liberal  Association,  the 
following  resolution,  the  sentiment  and  kindly  feeling  of 
which  was  appreciated  to  the  full  by  Northampton's  member: 
"  That  this  Executive  records  its  warmest  praise  for  the  bril- 
liant defences  of  democracy  put  forth  by  the  senior  member 

a? 


418  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

for  Northampton,  and  rejoices  at  his  fealty  to  the  ties  of 
party,  notwithstanding  the  personal  affront  of  unrequited 
services;  and,  further,  it  is  more  than  satisfied  that,  by  this 
tactical  error,  he  continues  free  to  serve  the  cause  of  the 
people,  in  which  in  the  past  he  has  so  signally  distinguished 
himself."  It  was  to  Northampton  that  Mr.  Labouchere 
frankly  expressed  where  the  real  sting  of  his  treatment  by 
his  party  lay:  "Mr.  Gladstone  handsomely  testified,"  he 
said,  "that  I  had  never  asked  for  office.  It  is,  however,  one 
thing  not  to  desire  office,  and  another  thing  to  be  stigmatised 
as  a  political  leper  unfitted  for  it  owing  to  incidents  which, 
while  testifying  to  my  energy  and  influence  are  in  no  way 
disparaging  to  my  honour."1 

Mr.  Labouchere  spent  his  summer  holiday  as  usual  at 
Cadenabbia,  and  his  mind  soon  resumed  its  equable  habit  of 
thought.  The  return  of  Sir  Charles  Dilke  to  the  House  of 
Commons  had  been  a  genuine  pleasure  to  him,  and  he  was  in 
constant  correspondence  with  him  during  his  holiday,  which 
he  extended  some  weeks  beyond  its  usual  limits.  His  letters 
dealt  largely  with  the,  to  him,  all-absorbing  subject  of 
the  renewal  of  the  Triple  Alliance. 

"Notwithstanding,"  he  wrote  on  September  17,  "the 
excitement  about  the  Italian  workmen  in  France  (which  has 
now  cooled  down)  I  very  much  doubt  whether  the  King  will 
be  able  for  long  to  keep  going  the  Triple  Alliance.  The 
customs  Union  with  Austria  has  not  been  a  success,  and  the 
taxes  are  so  enormous  that  there  must  come  a  crash.  The 
Socialists  and  the  Anarchists  are  joined  by  many  who 
simply  want  to  live,  and  who  put  down  the  heavy  taxation 
and  the  want  of  a  market  to  the  policy  of  the  Government. 
As  for  the  Army,  it  is  not  worth  much,  as  they  have  depleted 
the  line  regiments  of  good  men  in  order  to  form  a  few  crack 
regiments.  If  the  French  were  to  play  their  cards  well,  they 
might  soon  force  the  King  into  a  friendly  understanding.  I 

1  Letter  to  Mr.  Fredk.  Covington,  Chairman  of  the  Northampton  Liberal 
and  Radical  Association,  Sept.  13,  1892. 


EXCLUSION  FROM  THE  CABINET  419 

wonder  when  Parliament  will  meet  next  year,  if  it  sits  until 
Xmas.  I  suspect  that  our  revered  leader  is  angling  to  be 
able  to  get  south  in  January  and  possibly  February.  If 
he  can  he  will  dodge  every  question  except  H.  R. " 

Another  sentence  from  a  letter  to  the  same  correspondent 
I  cannot  resist  quoting.  It  is  so  easy  to  picture  how  very 
much  he  must  have  enjoyed  reading  the  German  and  Italian 
papers  to  which  he  refers,  for  the  details  of  the  great  Italian 
statesman's  policy  were  almost  like  spelling-book  knowledge 
to  him.  "  I  have  been  amused, "  he  wrote  on  September  10, 
"at  the  comments  of  the  German  and  Italian  papers  upon  Mr. 
Gladstone's  declaration  that  Cavour  would  have  been  for 
Irish  Home  Rule. "  Here  is  another  charming  letter  written 
from  Cadenabbia:  "A  man  who  is  owned  by  a  dog  has  a 
troublous  time.  I  am  owned  by  a  child,  who  is  owned  by  a 
dog.  I  have  a  daughter.  This  daughter  insisted  on  my 
buying  her  a  puppy  which  she  saw  in  the  arms  of  some  dog 
stealer  when  we  were  at  Homburg.  My  advice  to  parents  is, 
Never  allow  your  parental  feelings  to  lead  you  to  buy  your 
daughter  a  dog,  and  then  to  travel  about  with  daughter  and 
dog.  This  puppy  is  the  bane  of  my  existence.  Railroad  com- 
panies do  not  issue  through  tickets  for  dogs.  The  un- 
fortunate traveller  has  to  jump  out  every  hour  or  so  to  buy  a 
fresh  ticket.  I  tried  to  hide  the  beast  away  without  a  ticket, 
but  it  always  betrayed  me  by  barking  when  the  guard  looked 
in.  I  tried  to  leave  it  at  a  station,  but  the  creature  (who 
adds  blind  fidelity  to  its  other  objectionable  qualities)  always 
turned  up  before  the  train  started,  affectionately  barking 
and  wagging  its  tail.  The  puppy,  being  an  infant,  is  often 
sick,  generally  at  the  most  undesirable  moments  for  this  sort 
of  thing  to  happen.  When  it  is  not  sick  it  is  either  hungry 
or  thirsty,  and  it  is  very  particular  about  its  food.  I  find 
bones  surreptitiously  secreted  in  my  pockets.  I  am  told 
that  they  are  for  the  puppy,  and  if  I  throw  them  away  I  am 
regarded  as  a  heartless  monster.  Yesterday  he  ate  a  portion 
of  my  sponge.  I  did  not  interfere  with  him,  for  I  had  heard 


420  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

that  sponges  were  fatal  to  dogs.  It  disagreed  with  him,  but 
alas,  he  recovered.  I  take  him  out  with  me  in  boats,  in  the 
hope  that  he  will  leap  into  the  lake,  but  he  sticks  to  the  boat. 
I  am  reduced  to  such  a  condition  on  account  of  this  cur  that 
I  sympathise  with  Bill  Sikes  in  his  objection  to  being  fol- 
lowed everywhere  by  his  faithful  dog.  Am  I  doomed,  I  ask, 
to  be  for  ever  pestered  with  this  animal?  Will  he  never  be 
lost,  will  he  never  be  run  over,  will  he  recover  from  the  dis- 
temper if  fortune  favours  me  by  his  having  this  malady? 
Never,  I  repeat,  buy  your  daughter  a  dog,  and  travel  with 
daughter  and  dog. " r 

Mr.  Labouchere  did  not  return  to  London  before  the 
middle  of  October.  The  question  of  foreign  affairs  inter- 
ested him  unceasingly  throughout  Mr.  Gladstone's  fourth 
administration.  When  the  composition  of  Mr.  Gladstone's 
Cabinet  had  been  published  in  the  continental  papers,  many 
comments  had  been  made  upon  the  appointment  of  Lord 
Rosebery  to  be  Foreign  Secretary,  and  the  Temps  published 
a  pointed  leading  article  on  the  subject.  It  declared  that 
Lord  Rosebery  was  regarded  by  many  persons  as  the  incarna- 
tion of  Imperialism  and  Chauvinism,  but  it  went  on  to  re- 
assure its  readers  by  saying  that  after  all,  as  Mr.  Gladstone 
would  be  so  occupied  with  his  Home  Rule  scheme  and  minor 
social  questions,  the  hankerings  of  the  Foreign  Office  after 
national  glory  would  be  suppressed.  In  any  case,  it  added, 
Mr.  Labouchere  will,  if  necessary,  criticise  and  protest 
against  dangerous  ardour.  The  subject  of  Uganda  occupied 
the  English  Parliament  early  in  1903,  and  Mr.  Labouchere 
moved  an  amendment  to  the  Address  to  the  effect  that  he 
hoped  that  the  Commissioner  sent  by  Her  Majesty  to 
Uganda  would  effect  the  evacuation  of  that  country  by  the 
British  South  African  Company  without  any  further  Imperial 
responsibility  being  incurred.  He  gave  an  account  of  how  the 
treaty  with  the  King  of  Uganda  had  been  obtained,  culled 
from  Captain  Lugard's  own  report.  Captain  Lugard  ar- 

« Truth,  September,  1892. 


EXCLUSION  FROM  THE  CABINET  421 

rived  in  the  country,  he  said,  with  a  considerable  force  of 
Zanzibaris  with  breech-loaders  and  two  Maxim  guns.  A 
warm  discussion  arose  on  many  points.  Some  of  the  chiefs 
were  for  signing,  but  the  King  held  back  and  giggled  and 
fooled.  He  demanded  time.  "  I  replied, "  reported  Lugard, 
"by  rapping  the  table  and  speaking  loudly,  and  said  he  must 
sign  now.  I  threatened  to  leave  the  next  day  if  he  did  not, 
and  possibly  to  go  to  his  enemies.  I  pointed  out  to  him  that 
he  had  lost  the  southern  half  of  his  kingdom  to  the  Germans 
by  his  delay,  and  that  he  would  lose  more  if  he  delayed  now. 
He  was,  I  think,  scared  at  my  manner,  and  trembled  very 
violently."  .  .  .  And  so  on.  The  speech  was  one  of 
remarkable  power.  Although  it  covers  over  ten  pages  of 
Hansard,  the  reader's  interest  does  not  flag  for  an  instant. 
It  was  replied  to  by  the  Prime  Minister  with  appreciation 
and  vigour. 

On  February  13  Mr.  Gladstone  introduced  his  Home  Rule 
Bill, '  and  the  speech  Mr.  Labouchere  made  during  the  debate 
is  his  last  utterance  on  the  subject  that  I  shall  quote.  He 
was  true  to  his  great  leader  to  the  very  end,  although  that 
end  had  been  extended  to  a  date  far  beyond  the  period  that 
might  reasonably  have  been  expected.  It  was  a  remarkable 
fact,  said  Mr.  Labouchere,  that  in  1886  they  were  told  that 
Home  Rule  would  ruin  Ireland  and  the  proof  was  that  securi- 
ties had  gone  down.  They  were  now  told  that  Home  Rule 
would  ruin  Ireland  because  securities  had  gone  up!  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  balances  at  savings  banks  had  gone  up  be- 
cause of  certain  Land  Acts  and  Rent  Acts,  by  which  a  good 
deal  of  money  which  used  to  go  into  the  landlord's  pockets 
now  went  into  the  savings  bank.  ...  A  matter  like  the 
Home  Rule  scheme  was  necessarily  very  complicated.  They 
had  two  islands,  one  a  large  one  and  one  a  small  one.  The 

1  The  first  reading  took  place  on  Feb.  20.  It  was  passed  through  Com- 
mittee on  July  27.  After  a  scene  of  uproar  it  passed  the  House  of  Commons 
on  Sept.  2,  by  a  majority  of  34.  It  was  thrown  out  by  the  Lords  on  Sept.  9, 
by  a  majority  of  378. 


422  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

object  of  the  Bill  was  to  enable  them  to  produce  such  a  state 
of  things  as  would  enable  them  to  have  a  local  Parliament 
in  Ireland  dealing  alone  with  Irish  matters,  and  a  Parliament 
in  England  dealing  with  British  local  matters,  and  also  with 
Imperial  matters.  It  was  very  much  like  trying  to  put  a 
square  peg  into  a  round  hole.  He  quite  agreed  that  the 
angles  of  the  peg  would  remain.  They  could  not  get  the  fit 
geometrically  perfect,  but  the  great  object  was  to  get  the  best 
fit  they  could  under  the  circumstances.  It  must  always  be 
remembered  in  this  matter  of  Home  Rule  that  they  had  to 
choose  between  two  alternatives.  After  the  Bill  of  1886 
the  Unionists  went  before  the  country  saying  that  there  was 
a  third  course,  that  of  some  species  of  local  government. 
When  they  got  into  power  where  was  the  third  course?  It 
entirely  disappeared.  .  .  .  The  Duke  of  Devonshire  had 
tried  to  terrify  them  the  other  night  about  the  House  of  Lords, 
that  the  House  was  going  to  defend  the  liberties  of  the  United 
Kingdom  by  running  counter  to  the  will  of  the  people.  For 
his  part,  he  had  never  been  strongly  in  favour  of  an  assembly 
like  the  House  of  Lords.  He  could  not  understand  why  some 
six  hundred  gentlemen  should  interfere  with  the  decisions  of 
the  representatives  of  the  people.  If  they  did  they  would 
find  that  additional  force  would  be  given  to  the  intention  of 
the  democracy  to  put  an  end  to  their  existence.1  It  is 
interesting  to  note  that  in  this,  his  last  Parliament,  the 
Prime  Minister  himself  was  converted  to  Mr.  Labouchere's 
views  on  the  Upper  Chamber.  When  his  Home  Rule  Bill 
was  thrown  out  by  the  Lords,  and  his  Parish  Councils  Bill 
maimed  and  emasculated,  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
there  was  a  decisive  case  against  the  House  of  Lords.  "  Upon 
the  whole,  he  argued,"  says  Lord  Morley,  "it  was  not  too 
much  to  say  for  practical  purposes  the  Lords  had  destroyed 
the  work  of  the  House  of  Commons,  unexampled  as  that 
work  was  in  the  time  and  pains  bestowed  upon  it.  'I 
suggested  dissolution  to  my  colleagues  in  London,  where  half 

1  Hansard,  Feb.  16, 1893,  v°l-  v"i->  Series  4. 


EXCLUSION  FROM  THE  CABINET  423 

or  more  than  half  the  Cabinet  were  found  at  the  moment. 
I  received  by  telegraph  a  hopelessly  adverse  reply. '  Reluc- 
tantly he  let  the  idea  drop,  always  maintaining,  however, 
that  a  signal  opportunity  had  been  lost.  "x 

In  spite  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  activity  during  the  winter 
of  1892-3  his  health  was  not  good.  He  suffered  from  con- 
stant colds  and  coughs,  and  his  throat,  too,  was  troublesome. 
The  desire  for  change  was  upon  him,  and  his  mind  went  back 
to  the  happy  days  of  his  youth  in  America.  He  would  have 
liked  to  be  made  Minister  at  Washington.  The  idea  had 
occurred  to  him  at  Cadenabbia  when  some  American  friends 
had  suggested  to  him  how  popular  such  an  appointment  would 
be  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  The  climate  would  have 
suited  him,  and,  above  all,  the  friction  which  was  so  inevi- 
table between  him  and  the  Cabinet  would  have  been  avoided. 
Washington  was  quite  removed  from  any  of  those  quarters 
of  the  globe  where  Mr.  Labouchere's  and  Lord  Rosebery's 
foreign  policy  might  possibly  come  into  collision.  But  his 
desire  was  not  to  be  fulfilled.  Perhaps  naturally,  Lord  Rose- 
bery  thought  that  his  appointment  to  such  an  important  post 
would  look  rather  as  if  he  were  trying  to  get  rid  of  a  formid- 
able opponent,  or  at  least  as  if  he  were  trying  to  bribe  him 
into  silence.  His  refusal  to  grant  Mr.  Labouchere's  request 
was  unqualified,  and  Mr.  Labouchere  acknowledged  the 
repulse,  with  his  usual  philosophic  calm.  "However,"  he 
wrote  to  Lord  Rosebery,  on  December  8,  1892,"  asthe  matter 
rests  with  you,  and  as  you  are  averse  to  the  suggestion,  I 
can  only  say  that  all  is  for  the  best  in  the  best  of  worlds. " 

Mr.  Gladstone  resigned  the  Premiership  on  March  3, 
1894,  and  Lord  Rosebery  became  Prime  Minister.  The  life 
of  the  Liberal  Government  was  short,  and  Mr.  Labouchere 
soon  found  himself  again  in  his  native  air  of  Opposition, 
when  his  old  interest  in  Parliamentary  matters  revived.  It 
was  a  matter  of  common  knowledge  that  Mr.  Labouchere  was 
strongly  opposed  to  the  Premiership  of  Lord  Rosebery,  as 

1  Morley,  Life  of  Gladstone,  vol.  iii. 


424  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

anyone  possessed  of  his  strong  Radical  nature  was  bound  to 
be,  but  that  he  had  anything  to  do  with  the  snap  division 
which  ended  Lord  Rosebery's  Ministry1  is  clearly  contra- 
dicted by  an  interview  which  was  published  in  the  Globe  on 
the  very  day  after  the  fall  of  the  Ministry.  The  Globe 
correspondent  found  Mr.  Labouchere  in  the  highest  spirits 
smoking  his  "eternal  cigarette"  in  his  study  at  Old  Palace 
Yard.  "What  do  you  think  of  the  present  condition  of 
things?"  he  asked. 

"Well,"  replied  Mr.  Labouchere,  "I  have  only  just  be- 
come aware  of  what  happened.  I  was  sitting  on  the  terrace 
yesterday  evening  just  about  seven  with  Sir  William  Har- 
court,  who  was  joking  about  the  quietness  of  things,  and 
saying  it  was  a  dull  day  without  a  crisis,  when  the  division 
bell  rang.  I  said,  'Great  Heavens!  What's  that  for? 
I  want  to  get  home  to  dinner.'  With  that  I  rushed  into 
the  division  with  Sir  William,  and  really  did  n't  know  what 
it  was  about — you  know  you  can  get  into  the  Lobby  now 
direct  by  a  special  door.  Well,  having  recorded  my  vote 
I  hurried  off  to  the  theatre,  and  did  n't  wait  to  enter  the 
House.  Of  course,  if  I  had  known  what  was  going  to  happen 
I  should  have  waited  to  see  the  row.  I  heard  nothing  of 
the  affair  until  this  morning,  when  I  read  it  here,"  added 
Mr.  Labouchere,  pointing  to  the  newpaper  beside  him. 

"I  see,"  said  the  interviewer,  "that  you  voted  with  the 
Government?" 

"Oh  yes.  I  want  less  cartridges — not  more,  and  any- 
thing in  that  direction  gets  my  support.  As  far  as  I  could 
see  it  was  only  a  rag- tag  division." 

"  Do  you  mean  one  of  those  dinner- time  snatches,  like 
your  House  of  Lords  amendment?"* 

"Oh  no,  not  even  as  good  as  that;  just  the  swing  of  the 
pendulum. " 3 

xThe  Government  was  defeated  on  the  night  of  June  21,  1895,  upon  a  vote 

taken  in  Committee  on  the  Army  Estimates.  *  The  Globe,  June  22,  1895. 

» On  March  13,  1894,  Mr.  Labouchere  had  moved  an  amendment  to  the 


EXCLUSION  FROM  THE  CABINET  425 

The  question  on  South  Africa  was  soon  to  agitate  Eng- 
land, and  all  matters  of  lesser  interest  must  be  left  now 
to  show  the  impassioned  part  which  Mr.  Labouchere  played 
in  an  affair  which  cannot  be  said  even  to-day  to  have  found 
its  final  solution. 

Address,  praying  the  Queen  to  withdraw  the  power  of  the  Lords  to  veto  Bills. 
The  division  was  called  during  the  dinner  hour,  when  the  House  was  compara- 
tively empty,  and  the  Government  were  found  to  be  in  a  minority  of  2. 
Sir  William  Harccurt,  who  reproved  Mr.  Labouchere  for  the  levity  with  which 
he  approached  a  great  constitutional  question,  got  out  of  the  dilemma  by 
moving  a  new  Address. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA 

ON  Sunday,  December  29,  1895,  an  armed  force  com- 
manded by  Dr.  Jameson  and  Captain  Willoughby 
invaded  the  territory  of  the  Republic  of  the  Transvaal. 
The  object  of  the  Jameson  Raid  was  to  combine  with  a  body 
of  disaffected  Englishmen,  living  at  Johannesburg,  in  order 
to  upset  the  Government  of  the  Transvaal,  and,  thereby,  to 
provoke  the  intervention  of  the  neighbouring  British  Com- 
missioner, and  so  lead  to  the  remission  of  the  grievances  of 
the  Uitlander  population.  Such  intervention,  in  the  opinion 
of  those  responsible  for  the  Raid,  was  not  intended  to  result 
in  the  absorption  of  the  South  African  Republic  by  the 
British  Empire,  though  this  point  has  never  been  made 
altogether  clear.  The  English  in  Johannesburg,  the  Uit- 
landers  as  they  were  called  in  Dutch,  failed,  however,  to  meet 
the  invaders,  and  Jameson  and  his  men  were  captured  with- 
out difficulty  by  the  troops  of  the  Republic,  and  were  handed 
over  to  the  Imperial  Government  to  be  tried  and  punished. 
Subsequently,  a  select  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons 
was  appointed  to  investigate  the  causes  of  the  Raid.  The 
Committee,  which  numbered  amongst  its  members  Mr. 
Labouchere,  met  for  the  first  time  on  February  5.  1897. 
The  directors  of  the  British  South  Africa  Company,  Messrs. 
C.  J.  Rhodes,  Jameson,  Alfred  Beit,  Lionel  Phillips,  and 
Rutherford  Harris,  were  represented  by  Counsel.  Mr.  La- 
bouchere frequently  told  me  that  he  had  never  felt  altogether 

426 


THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA  427 

satisfied  with  the  composition  of  the  Committee.  There 
were  not  enough  stalwart  Radicals  on  it.  It  was  composed 
as  follows:  Sir  Michael  Hicks-Beach,  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  Mr.  Chamberlain,  the  Attorney-General,  Mr. 
Cripps,  Sir  W.  Hart  Dyke,  Mr.  Jackson,  Mr.  Wharton,  Mr. 
George  Wyndham,  Sir  William  Harcourt,  Sir  Henry  Camp- 
bell Bannerman,  Messrs.  John  Ellis,  Sidney  Buxton,  Blake, 
Labouchere,  and  Bigham  (now  Lord  Mersey).  Mr.  Labou- 
chere  found  his  chief  support  in  Mr.  Blake,  but  even  he  fell 
off  towards  the  end,  and  the  member  for  Northampton 
registered  his  solitary  vote  for  the  second  reading  of  the 
alternative  report  with  which  he  wished  to  replace  that  of 
the  chairman.  The  chairman's  report  finally  adopted  by 
the  Committee  may  be  summarised  as  follows: 

"  (i)  Great  discontent  had  for  some  time  previous  to  the 
incursion  existed  in  Johannesburg,  arising  from  the  griev- 
ances of  the  Uitlanders. 

"(2)  Mr.  Rhodes  occupied  a  great  position  in  South 
Africa;  he  was  Prime  Minister  of  Cape  Colony,  and,  beyond 
all  other  persons,  should  have  been  careful  to  abstain  from 
such  a  course  as  that  which  he  adopted.  As  Managing 
Director  of  the  British  South  Africa  Company,  as  director  of 
the  De  Beers  Consolidated  Mines  and  the  Gold  Fields  of 
South  Africa,  Mr.  Rhodes  controlled  a  great  combination 
of  interests :  he  used  his  position  and  those  interests  to  pro- 
mote and  assist  his  policy.  Whatever  justification  there 
may  have  been  for  action,  on  the  part  of  the  people  of 
Johannesburg,  there  was  none  for  the  conduct  of  a  person  in 
Mr.  Rhodes'  position,  in  subsidising,  organising,  and  stim- 
ulating an  armed  insurrection  against  the  Government  of 
the  South  African  Republic,  and  employing  the  forces  and 
resources  of  the  Chartered  Company  to  support  such  a 
revolution.  He  seriously  embarrassed  both  the  Imperial 
and  Colonial  Governments,  and  his  proceedings  resulted  in 
the  invasion  of  the  territory  of  a  state  which  was  in  friendly 
relations  with  Her  Majesty,  in  breach  of  the  obligation  to 


428  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

respect  the  right  to  self-government  of  the  South  African 
Republic  under  the  conventions  between  Her  Majesty  and 
that  state.  Although  Dr.  Jameson  'went  in*  without  Mr. 
Rhodes'  authority,  it  was  always  part  of  the  plan  that  these 
forces  should  be  used  in  the  Transvaal  in  support  of  an  insur- 
rection. Nothing  could  justify  such  a  use  of  such  a  force, 
and  Mr.  Rhodes'  heavy  responsibility  remains,  although 
Dr.  Jameson  at  the  last  moment  invaded  the  Transvaal 
without  his  direct  sanction. 

"(3)  Such  a  policy  once  embarked  upon  inevitably  in- 
volved Mr.  Rhodes  in  grave  breaches  of  duty  to  those  to 
whom  he  owed  allegiance.  He  deceived  the  High  Commis- 
sioner representing  the  Imperial  Government,  he  concealed 
his  views  from  his  colleagues  in  the  Colonial  Ministry  and 
from  the  Board  of  the  British  South  Africa  Company,  and 
led  his  subordinates  to  believe  that  his  plans  were  approved 
by  his  superiors. 

"  (4)  Your  Committee  have  heard  the  evidence  of  all  the 
directors  of  the  British  South  Africa  Company,  with  the 
exception  of  Lord  Grey.  Of  those  who  were  examined  Mr. 
Beit  and  Mr.  Maguire  alone  had  cognisance  of  Mr.  Rhodes' 
plans.  Mr.  Beit  played  a  prominent  part  in  the  negotiations 
with  the  Reform  Union ;  he  contributed  large  sums  of  money 
to  the  revolutionary  movement,  and  must  share  full  respon- 
sibility for  the  consequences. 

"(5)  There  is  not  the  slightest  evidence  that  the  late 
Commissioner  in  South  Africa,  Lord  Rosmead,  was  made 
acquainted  with  Mr.  Rhodes'  plans.  The  evidence,  on  the 
contrary,  shows  that  there  was  a  conspiracy  to  keep  all  infor- 
mation on  the  subject  away  from  him.  The  Committee 
must,  however,  express  a  strong  opinion  upon  the  conduct 
of  Sir  Graham  Bower,  who  was  guilty  of  a  grave  dereliction 
of  duty  in  not  communicating  to  the  High  Commissioner 
the  information  which  had  come  to  his  knowledge.  Mr. 
Newton  failed  in  his  duty  in  a  like  manner. 

11  (6)  Neither  the  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Colonies  nor 


THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA  429 

any  of  the  officials  of  the  Colonial  Office  received  any 
information  which  made  them,  or  should  have  made  them 
or  any  of  them,  aware  of  the  plot  during  its  development. 

"  (7)  Finally,  your  Committee  desire  to  put  on  record  an 
absolute  and  unqualified  condemnation  of  the  Raid  and  of 
the  plans  which  made  it  possible.  The  result  caused  for  the 
time  being  grave  injury  to  British  influence  in  South  Africa. 
Public  confidence  was  shaken,  race  feeling  embittered,  and 
serious  difficulties  were  created  with  neighbouring  states."1 

It  is  impossible  to  quote  even  such  a  summary  as  I  have 
just  given  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  Draft  Report.  He  began  by 
indicating  the  difficulties  under  which  the  Committee 
laboured : 

"(i)  Your  Committee  decided,  in  the  first  instance,  to 
limit  its  inquiries  into  that  portion  of  the  matters  submitted 
to  it  for  investigation  having  relation  to  the  Jameson  Raid. 

44  (2)  A  considerable  amount  of  oral  and  documentary 
evidence  has  been  placed  before  it.  But  its  task  was  ren- 
dered difficult.  Some  of  the  witnesses,  who  were  either 
cognisant  of  the  Jameson  plan,  or  who  took  part  in  the 
Jameson  Raid,  displayed  an  unwillingness  to  make  a  clean 
breast  of  all  that  they  knew,  and  in  many  instances  witnesses 
refused  to  answer  questions  that  the  Committee  considered 
might  properly  be  put  to  them.  Lord  Rosmead  could  not 
be  called  as  a  witness  on  account  of  ill  health,  although  Mr. 
Rhodes  had  referred  to  him  in  his  evidence  as  able  to  answer 
questions,  to  which  that  gentleman  was  not  willing  to  reply. 
Documents  of  the  greatest  importance,  in  possession  of  one 
of  the  witnesses,  were  not  forthcoming,2  nor  was  an  oppor- 
tunity given  to  all  the  members  of  your  Committee  to  exam- 
ine him  as  to  the  statement  that  he  had  made  in  evidence 
in  connection  with  them,  nor  was  he  reported  to  your  House 
for  contumacy,  with  a  view  to  your  House  taking  action  to 

1  Times  History  of  the  War  in  South  Africa,  vol.  I. 
•The  Hawkesley  telegrams.    These  were  subsequently  published  in  the 
Independence  Beige. 


430  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

overcome  it.  It  seemed  probable  from  the  evidence  that 
much  in  regard  to  the  document  had  been  stated  to  the 
War  Office,  as  a  ground  for  its  taking  certain  action  with 
respect  to  the  officers  concerned  in  the  Raid.  But  witnesses 
from  that  office  were  not  examined  as  to  these  communica- 
tions. Although  these  documents  were  in  the  hands  of  his 
solicitor,  who  informed  your  Committee  that  Mr.  Rhodes 
claimed  them  as  his  property,  and  would  not  allow  him  to 
produce  them,  no  direct  application  was  made  to  Mr.  Rhodes 
by  your  Committee  to  allow  them  to  be  produced.  Other 
documents  of  a  similar  character  were  secured  by  your 
Committee  only  after  Mr.  Rhodes  had  left  the  country. 
He  was  not,  consequently,  examined  in  regard  to  their 
or  as  tenor,  to  his  action  in  respect  to  them. 

"  (3)  Owing  to  these  causes  your  Committee  cannot  pre- 
tend to  have  become  possessed  of  a  perfect  and  full  know- 
ledge of  everything  connected  with  the  Jameson  plan  and  the 
Jameson  Raid.  It  has  consequently  only  been  able  to  weigh 
evidence  against  evidence,  and  to  deduce  from  what  has 
been  submitted  to  it  the  inferences  that  seem  to  flow  there- 
from."1 

He  proceeded  to  stigmatise,  even  more  severely  than  the 
Report  adopted  by  the  Committee,  the  political  conduct  of 
Mr.  Rhodes,  for  whom,  in  private,  he  had  conceived  con- 
siderable personal  admiration.  In  paragraph  25  of  Mr. 
Labouchere's  Draft  Report  was  this  statement:  "Your 
Committee  is,  however,  of  the  opinion  that  they  (Messrs. 
Rhodes  and  Beit)  merit  severe  punishment.  Mr.  Rhodes  is  a 
Privy  Councillor,  he  was  a  Cape  Premier,  and  he  was  the 
autocrat  of  Rhodesia  when  the  conspiracy  that  your  Com- 
mittee has  investigated  was  in  preparation,  and  when  it  was 
sought  to  carry  it  out.  He  deceived  his  Sovereign,  the 
Secretary  of  State  for  the  Colonies,  the  High  Commissioner 
of  South  Africa,  the  Governor  of  the  Cape  Colony,  his 
colleagues  in  the  Cape  Cabinet,  the  Board  of  the  Chartered 

1  Report  from  the  Select  Committee  on  British  South  Africa,  1897. 


THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA  431 

Company,  and  the  very  persons  whom  he  used  as  his  instru- 
ments in  his  nefarious  designs;  and  he  abused  the  high 
positions  which  he  held  by  engaging  in  a  conspiracy,  in  a 
success  of  which  his  own  pecuniary  interests  were  largely 
involved,  thus  inflicting  a  slur  on  the  hitherto  unblemished 
honour  of  our  public  men  at  home  and  in  our  colonies.  Mr. 
Beit  is  a  German  subject.  In  conjunction  with  Mr.  Rhodes 
he  fomented  a  revolution  in  a  state  in  amity  with  us,  and 
promoted  an  invasion  of  that  state  from  British  territory. 
These  two  men,  the  one  a  British  statesman,  the  other  a 
financier  of  German  nationality,  disgraced  the  good  name 
of  England,  which  it  ought  to  be  the  object  of  all  Englishmen 
to  maintain  pure  and  undefiled. " 

The  only  other  important  point  in  Mr.  Labouchere's 
Draft  Report  was  that  referring  to  the  alleged  complicity 
of  the  Colonial  Office  in  the  Raid.  While  Mr.  Labouchere 
admitted  that  the  evidence  in  no  way  showed  that  any  such 
complicity  had  existed,  he  regretted  that  the  question  had  not 
been  probed  to  the  bottom,  "because  the  slightest  appearance 
of  any  indisposition  to  do  this  by  your  Committee  may  lead 
some  persons  erroneously  to  suppose  that  there  may  be  some 
truth  in  the  statements  of  witnesses  connected  with  the  Jame- 
son plan  that  the  secret  aims  of  Mr.  Rhodes  were  more  or  less 
clearly  revealed  to  Mr.  Chamberlain  and  to  Mr.  Fairfield. " 

He  expressed  himself  very  strongly  in  the  following  article 
on  the  Chartered  Company  in  Truth: 

If  the  events  of  the  past  week  have  not  opened  the  eyes  of 
Englishmen  at  large  to  the  character  of  the  patriots  and  heroes 
who  have  too  long  ruled  the  roost  in  South  Africa,  our  boasted 
national  common  sense  must  indeed  be  a  pitiful  sham.  What  is 
the  position?  The  South  African  Republic  is  a  state  originally 
brought  into  existence  by  the  Boers  treking  from  Cape  Colony 
into  the  wilderness,  and  establishing  themselves  beyond  what 
were  then  the  limits  of  British  colonisation.  We  tricked  them 
once  into  surrendering  their  independence,  merely  reserving 
a  suzerainty  as  against  their  right  to  conclude  treaties  with  foreign 


432  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

states  without  our  consent.  But  since  that  was  done,  gold  was 
discovered  within  their  territory,  and  this  has  led  to  the  migra- 
tion of  a  vast  number  of  English  and  men  of  other  nationalities 
into  the  region  where  the  Boer  imagined  that  he  was  safe  from 
pursuit.  On  the  whole,  these  settlers,  considering  how  unwel- 
come their  presence  must  have  been,  have  not  been  badly  treated. 
The  taxation  is  not  excessive,  and  the  condition  of  the  mining 
industry  is  infinitely  better  than  it  is  ever  likely  to  be  under 
the  Chartered  Company.  Out  of  all  those  who  have  dabbled  in 
Transvaal  mining  shares  during  the  last  year  I  wonder  how  many 
know  the  facts  respecting  the  relation  of  the  companies  to  the 
Government  of  the  country.  The  Government  charges  on  every 
mining  claim  a  ground  rent  or  royalty  of  IDS.  a  month.  To  a 
company  owning  fifty  claims  this  means  a  ground  rent  of  £300 
a  year — a  very  reasonable  charge,  when  from  thirty  to  sixty  per 
cent,  can  be  earned  on  the  capital  of  the  Company.  As  against 
this  what  do  the  Chartered  Company  charge?  One  half  the  net 
profits  of  all  mines  worked  under  their  jurisdiction.  This  alone 
should  teach  shareholders  of  the  Transvaal  mines  how  little  they 
have  to  gain  from  the  overthrow  of  Boer  Government  by  the 
Rhodes  gang,  and  how  thankful  they  may  be  for  the  course  of 
events  last  week. 

The  non-Boer  population,  however,  at  Johannesburg  and 
elsewhere  have  a  genuine  grievance  on  the  question  of  the  fran- 
chise and  other  rights  of  citizenship.  In  order  to  maintain  their 
exclusive  sovereignty  in  the  land  the  Boers  insist  upon  a  fifteen 
years'  residence  for  full  naturalisation.  .  .  .  The  period  is 
too  long,  and  it  would  be  prudent  on  the  part  of  the  Boers  to 
reduce  it.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  they  would  refuse 
to  do  so,  were  the  demands  of  the  Uitlanders  advanced  in  a 
regular  manner.  .  .  .  But  even  were  the  Boers  ever  so  deaf 
to  justice  and  so  blind  to  their  own  interests  as  to  meet  the 
Uitlander  case  with  an  obstinate  non  possumus,  what  pretext 
does  this  afford  for  armed  intervention  by  the  Chartered  Com- 
pany? A  pretence  it  is  true  has  been  made  that,  before  com- 
mencing their  Raid,  Jameson  and  his  men  resigned  their  positions 
under  the  Company;  but  even  if  such  a  form  were  gone  through, 
it  is  obviously  only  a  colourable  pretence.  The  invading  force 
was  drilled,  armed,  and  maintained  by  the  Company.  At  its 


THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA  433 

head  was  the  administrator  of  the  Company.  On  his  staff  was 
the  Company's  generalissimo.  It  took  with  it  the  ammunition, 
equipment,  and  horses  of  the  Company.  .  .  .  Neither  in  the 
political  aims  of  the  Uitlanders,  nor  the  position  of  the  Johannes- 
burgers  was  there  a  shadow  of  justification  for  Jameson's  Raid. 
....  The  proceedings  bear  their  character  on  their  face 
and  are  of  a  piece  with  all  that  has  gone  before  in  the  history  of 
the  Company.  The  design  was  to  play  the  Matabele  coup  again 
on  a  bigger  field.  What  was  the  origin  of  the  Raid  on  Lobengula? 
The  Company  had  obtained  Lobengula's  permission  to  occupy 
Mashonaland  and  dig  there  for  gold,  and  had  no  further  right 
beyond  this.  When  occupied,  Mashonaland  was  found  to  have 
no  paying  gold.  The  shares  of  the  Company  were  unsalable 
rubbish.  A  pretext  was  therefore  found  for  making  war  on  Loben- 
gula and  seizing  Matabeleland — a  pretext  as  transparently  dis- 
honest as  the  pretext  for  the  invasion  of  the  Transvaal.  All  the 
circumstances  showed  in  that  case  as  in  this,  that  the  coup  had 
been  carefully  prepared  long  beforehand.  When  the  train  had 
been  laid,  a  quarrel  was  picked  with  the  Matabele,  who  had  entered 
Mashonaland  at  the  Company's  request,  and  they  were  attacked 
and  shot  down  by  this  same  Jameson  while  doing  their  best  to 
retire  in  obedience  to  his  orders.  Instantly  the  whole  of  the 
Company's  forces,  all  held  in  readiness,  entered  Matabeleland 
under  the  pretence  that  the  Matabele  and  not  the  Company  were 
the  aggressors.  Lobengula's  savages  were  mowed  down  by 
thousands  with  Maxims.  Those  who  were  taken  prisoners  were 
killed  off  to  save  trouble.  The  envoys  sent  by  the  King  to  try 
and  make  terms  were  barbarously  murdered.  The  King  himself 
fled  and  died  before  he  could  be  captured.  His  territory  and  the 
flocks  and  herds  of  his  people  were  parcelled  out  among  the 
Company  and  the  band  of  freebooters  who  had  been  collected 
by  promises  of  loot.  One  million  new  shares  were  created  by 
Jameson's  principals  and  colleagues,  and,  in  the  subsequent  boom, 
shares  were  unloaded  on  the  British  public  at  prices  ranging  up  to 
£8  per  share.  Matabeleland,  however,  has  proved  no  richer  in 
paying  gold  than  Mashonaland.  The  shares  have  been  going 
down  again.  What  were  the  Chartered  gang  to  do  next?  In 
the  Transvaal  there  are  extensive  paying  gold  mines,  and  money 
which  the  gang  would  like  to  pocket  is  going  elsewhere.  Forth- 

38 


434  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

with  the  Chartered  Company's  forces  are  marshalled  again.  A 
sudden  and  obviously  factitious  agitation  springs  up  at  Johannes- 
burg. Rumours  of  deadly  peril  to  the  alien  population  are  put 
in  circulation,  goodness  knows  whence.  The  women  and  children 
are  packed  off — so  it  is  said,  but  no  one  knows  why  or  at  whose 
instigation.  Simultaneously  a  message  imploring  aid  from  the 
quaking  citizens  reaches  Jameson,  no  one  knows  how,  and  in  a 
moment  the  fighting  doctor  and  his  bold  buccaneers  are  once 
more  over  the  border.  There,  however,  all  resemblance  between 
the  two  coups  ends.  The  Chartered  heroes  have  not  to  deal 
this  time  with  naked  half -armed  savages,  but  with  white  men  as 
well  armed  as  themselves,  and  as  well  able  to  use  their  arms. 
There  are  Maxim  guns  on  the  other  side  this  time  and  Krupp 
guns  as  well.  Result:  after  a  few  hours' fighting,  the  conquerors 
of  Matabeleland  are  killed  or  taken  prisoners,  and  the  doughty 
Jameson  and  his  staff  are  lodged  in  Pretoria  Gaol.  I  have  no 
desire  to  exult  over  their  fate.  It  is  a  shameful  and  abominable 
business  all  round,  out  of  which  no  Englishman  can  extract  a 
grain  of  satisfaction.  But  if  ever  men  died  with  their  blood  on 
their  own  heads,  they  are  the  men  who  fell  in  this  raid,  and  if 
ever  prisoners  of  war  deserved  scant  mercy,  Jameson  and  his 
comrades  are  those  prisoners.  They  may  thank  their  stars  that 
they  have  fallen  into  the  hands  of  men  who  are  not  likely  to  treat 
them  as  they  themselves  treated  the  Matabele  wounded  and 
prisoners. x 

He  continued  his  attack  in  a  serious  of  articles.  The 
burden  of  his  argument  was  always  the  impurity  of  motive 
arising  from  the  financial  interest  involved.  "What  a 
comment  on  our  morality,"  he  writes  on  April  2,  "has  been 
our  action  during  the  last  few  months !  We  quarrelled  with 
the  Americans  about  Venezuela  about  a  bog  in  which  we 
fancied  there  might  be  gold ;  we  remain  in  Egypt  because  we 
are  looking  after  the  interest  on  Egyptian  bonds,  and  finding 
salaries  for  a  herd  of  English  employees ;  we  are  engaged  in 
a  Soudan  Expedition  because  Dongola  is  fertile,  and  its  pos- 
session will  afford  a  plea  to  us  to  violate  our  pledges  to  leave 

1  Truth,  Jan.  9,  1896. 


THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA  435 

Egypt;  we  are  disputing  with  President  Kruger  because  he 
has  fallen  out  with  a  crew  of  company  mongers;  we  are 
backing  up  a  company  in  Rhodesia  because  its  shares  have 
been  put  up  to  a  high  premium  on  the  Stock  Exchange. 
But,  pledged  as  we  are  to  see  that  there  is  good  government 
in  Armenia,  we  are  supinely  looking  on  whilst  Armenian  men 
are  being  slaughtered,  Armenian  women  -ravished,  and 
Armenian  villages  burnt.  Why?  Because  there  is  no 
money  to  be  made  in  protecting  Armenians,  and  our  finan- 
ciers have  no  interests  in  Armenia."1 

Mr.  Labouchere  thought,  rightly  or  wrongly,  that  the 
Imperialism  of  Mr.  Rhodes  was  little  more  than  a  mask  to 
cover  the  desire  for  financial  expansion.  Not  that  he  thought 
badly  of  Mr.  Rhodes  personally.  He  thought  that  he 
deceived  himself  in  perfectly  good  faith.  While  he  detested 
his  aims,  he  could  not  help  admiring  the  energy  and  skill  with 
which  they  were  promoted,  and  something  simple  and  direct 
in  the  character  of  the  man  himself. 

The  estimate  I  had  formed  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  opinion 
of  Mr.  Rhodes  as  a  private  individual  was  recently  confirmed 
by  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  which  I  received  from 
Mr.  Charles  Boyd  containing  a  reminiscence  of  an  interview 
he  had  with  Mr.  Labouchere  in  1897: 

That  was  the  year  [he  wrote]  of  the  British  South  Africa 
Commission  of  which  he  (Mr.  Labouchere)  was  a  member,  and 
which,  as  George  Wyndham's  Secretary,  I  regularly  attended; 
he  was,  of  course,  very  much  "over  the  way,"  in  Mr.  Jaggers's 
sense,  to  what  one  may  call  the  Imperialist  view  of  the  South 
African  question.  It  was,  I  think,  in  May,  or,  at  all  events,  near 
the  end  of  the  sitting  of  the  Commission,  that  I  conceived  the 
spirited  notion  of  offering  myself  for  the  post  of  Imperial  Secre- 
tary to  the  High  Commissioner  for  South  Africa,  Sir  Alfred 
Milner,  then  recently  appointed;  though  without  official  experi- 
ence, I  had  some  good  backers  on  the  strength  of  some  little 

1  Truth,  April  2,  1896. 


436  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

study  of  the  South  African  problem.  Among  these  was  one  of 
the  kindest  of  men,  the  late  Mr.  Moberley  Bell,  manager  of  the 
Times,  with  whom  one  morning  I  sat  in  his  house  in  Portland 
Place  considering  that  forlorn  hope,  as  it  most  properly  proved 
to  be  of  my  ambition.  "The  only  thing  is,"  said  Mr.  Bell, 
"what  are  you  going  to  do  with  Labby?  You  know  you  are 
a  child  of  the  opposite  camp."  I  agreed  with  gloom  that,  if  I 
had  any  chance,  and  Mr.  Labouchere  "took  notice,"  my  ante- 
cedents might  not  be  a  recommendation.  The  imperial  South 
African  Association  was  then  about  a  year  old,  and  active  and 
formidable  enough  to  have  caught  the  eye  of  Truth.  Mr.  Bell, 
leaning  his  big  head  on  his  big  hand,  had  a  benevolent  inspiration. 
"If  I  were  you,"  he  said,  "I  'd  jump  into  the  nearest  hansom 
and  drive  straight  to  5  Old  Palace  Yard.  It  's  a  sort  of  move  he 
may  quite  well  love.  You  will  be  'squaring  Labby,"'  and  Mr. 
Bell  dismissed  me  with  his  blessing.  Yet  a  little  and  somewhat 
nervous-like  I  stood  in  the  presence  of  your  Uncle,  in  that  wonder- 
ful room  which  you  will  so  well  remember  giving  on  the  green  turf 
of  the  Abbey  precincts.  I  stated  my  case,  and  displayed  one  or 
two  testimonials,  including  that  of  his  friend  Sir  Charles  Dilke. 
"And  now,"  said  I  indignantly,  "if  I  do  have  any  chance,  I 
am  told  that  I  am  in  danger  of  Truth. "  "  Nothing  of  the  kind, " 
said  Mr.  Labouchere.  "I  have,  to  begin  with,  a  considerable 
admiration  for  George  Wyndham,  and,  as  for  yourself ,  your  having 
the  nerve  to  come  straight  to  me  is  sufficient  proof  of  your  fitness 
for  the  Imperial  Secretaryship  or  for  anything  else, "  and  with 
a  graceful  movement  of  his  wrist  he  disengaged  some  cigarettes 
from  a  sort  of  gilded  network  basket  of  the  same,  which  depended 
from  the  wall,  and  bade  me  sit  down  and  smoke.  He  talked  of 
the  Commission,  and  asked  me  what  I  thought  of  the  evidence 
of  Mr.  Rhodes,  with  whom,  of  course,  he  had  considerably  crossed 
swords,  not  to  say  whom  he  had  bated.  I  expressed,  possibly  with 
an  air  of  defiance,  an  extreme  sense  of  Mr.  Rhodes'  candour. 
"But  bless  you,"  said  Mr.  Labouchere,  "I  know  all  that  as 
well  as  you.  I  like  Rhodes,  I  like  his  porter  and  sandwiches. 
An  entirely  honest,  heavy  person.  On  the  other  hand,  did  you 

ever  see  anything  so  fatuous  as  the  performance  of  H ?" 

Presently  he  returned  to  my  candidature,  and  said,  "I  'd  better 
write  you  a  testimonial  myself,  and  that  will  allay  your  fears.  .  .  " 


THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA  437 

As  is  well  known,  the  troubles  of  South  Africa  did  not 
come  to  an  end  with  the  settlement  of  the  Jameson  Raid. 
The  aggrieved  Uitlanders  had  not  availed  themselves,  when 
it  came  to  the  point,  of  Dr.  Jameson's  action,  and  their 
unredressed  grievances — that  they  suffered  from  serious 
grievances  was  admitted  even  by  Mr.  Labouchere — festered 
in  their  minds  and  produced,  as  time  went  on,  deeper  and 
more  widespread  dissatisfaction.  Nor  was  the  appointment 
in  1897  of  Sir  Alfred  (now  Lord)  Milner  as  British  Governor 
of  Cape  Colony  and  High  Commissioner  for  South  Africa 
by  Mr.  Chamberlain,  who  had  taken  office  under  Lord 
Salisbury  as  Colonial  Secretary,  calculated  to  allay  the 
resentment  of  the  Boers,  his  Imperialist  sympathies  being 
well  known.  Towards  the  end  of  1898,  Sir  Alfred  Milner 
left  South  Africa  for  England.  He  was  away  for  three 
months,  and  during  his  absence  several  things  occurred  to 
hasten  the  unfortunate  crisis — the  outbreak  of  war.  Gen- 
eral Sir  William  Butler  had  been  selected  to  fill  the  chief  mili- 
tary command  in  South  Africa,  left  vacant  by  the  sudden  death 
of  Sir  William  Goodenough.  Sir  William  Butler,  immediately 
on  his  arrival  in  South  Africa,  allowed  his  sympathy  with  the 
Afrikander  party  to  be  very  apparent.  He  was  convinced 
that  the  English  population  of  the  Transvaal  had  no  real  griev- 
ances, and  were  only  striving  to  make  mischief.  When  Sir 
Alfred  Milner  returned  to  the  Cape,  on  February  14, 1899,  he 
was  faced  by  a  very  different  situation  to  the  one  he  had  left. 
In  almost  all  the  towns  of  Cape  Colony  and  Natal  meetings  had 
been  held  by  the  Colonists  protesting  against  the  continua- 
tion of  the  existing  state  of  affairs  in  the  Transvaal,  and  de- 
manding the  intervention  of  the  Imperial  Government.  Dutch 
feeling  was  no  less  agitated.  Among  the  extreme  section  of 
Afrikanders  everywhere  a  movement  was  on  foot  for  the  form- 
ation of  a  National  League  which  should  bind  together  all 
Afrikanders  in  strenuous  opposition  to  any  attempt  of  the 
Imperial  power  to  intervene  in  South  African  affairs. ' 

1  Times'  History  of  the  War  in  South  Africa,  vol.  ii. 


438  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

In  England,  tne  first  indication  of  what  was  coming  was 
revealed  to  the  discerning  public  who  read  Parliamentary 
reports  by  the  publication  of  the  army  estimates,  in  which  a 
sum  not  exceeding  £1,211,900  was  asked  for  to  cover  the 
military  expenses  (March,  iSQQ-March,  1900).  Mr.  Dillon 
asked  why  it  was  considered  necessary  to  increase  so  enorm- 
ously our  forces  in  South  Africa.  The  Colonial  Secretary 
(Mr.  Chamberlain)  replied  to  the  effect  that  the  Transvaal 
Republic,  which  borders  on  the  colony  of  Natal  and  Cape 
Colony,  had  enormously  increased  their  offensive  or  defensive 
forces  within  the  last  few  years.  They  had  spent  large  sums 
in  forts,  artillery,  and  rifles,  and  millions  of  cartridges  had 
been  imported.  Therefore,  as  long  as  the  British  Govern- 
ment was  responsible  for  the  peace  in  South  Africa,  a  like 
increase  of  warlike  preparation  was  necessary  on  our  part. 
Mr.  Labouchere  replied  aptly  that  the  increased  defensive 
measures  adopted  by  the  Boers  had  only  followed  upon  the 
scandalous  and  outrageous  raid  which  had  been  made  upon 
their  country  by  the  minions  of  the  Chartered  Company. 
Then  a  paragraph  appeared  in  the  Times  to  the  effect  that 
the  Commander-in-Chief  had  been  engaged  in  completing  the 
organisation  and  composition  of  the  "larger  force  which  it 
will  be  necessary  to  dispatch  to  South  Africa  in  the  event  of 
the  negotiations  at  present  in  progress  with  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  Transvaal  proving  unsuccessful."  Mr.  La- 
bouchere asked,  on  July  7,  whether  the  officers  mentioned  in 
this  communique  as  going  to  South  Africa  to  organise  the 
forces,  were  to  go  into  Cape  Colony  and  into  Natal  to  organ- 
ise them,  and,  if  so,  whether  it  was  with  the  consent  of  the 
Ministers  of  those  Colonies?  To  which  question  Mr.  Bal- 
four  replied  "  I  do  not  know. " x 

On  October  17,  Mr.  Dillon  moved  an  amendment  to  the 
Address  in  answer  to  the  Queen's  Speech,  praying  for  arbitra- 
tion to  settle  the  difficulties  between  the  two  Governments, 
so  that  "an  ignominious  war  may  be  avoided  between  the 

1  Hansard,  vol.  74,  July  7,  1899. 


THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA  439 

overwhelming  forces  of  your  Majesty's  Empire  and  those  of 
two  small  nations  numbering  in  all  less  than  200,000  souls. " 
Mr.  Labouchere  seconded  the  amendment,  and  pleaded 
eloquently  for  arbitration,  suggesting  President  McKinley 
as  the  best  arbitrator  possible.  The  peroration  of  his  speech 
was  excellent,  but,  alas,  it  fell  at  the  time  upon  ears  already 
eagerly  alert  for  no  other  sounds  than  the  music  of  triumph- 
ant victory  and  glorious  marches  home  after  a  course  of 
deeds  of  valour,  which  the  mere  fact  of  British  nationality 
was  to  render  as  easy  of  achievement  as  an  afternoon's  foot- 
ball. It  reads  now  with  a  different  ring,  and  testifies  to  the 
spirit  of  justice  and  temperance  which  were  so  characteristic 
of  all  his  policy  in  those  crises  when  the  English  nation  gets 
stirred  up,  as  it  sometimes  does,  to  a  spirit  of  hysterical 
enthusiasn,  in  comparison  with  which  the  excitability  and 
nervous  agitation  of  the  "foreigner"  is  a  mere  joke.  "I 
confess  that  I  feel  very  sorry  for  the  end  of  these  unfortunate 
Boers,"  he  said.  "They  are  fathers  of  families,  they  are 
farmers,  honest  and  ignorant  if  you  like.  They  are  fighting 
for  that  which  they  believe  to  be  the  holiest  and  most  noble 
of  causes — their  homesteads  and  their  country.  We  must  all 
regret  that  their  country  is  not  only  turned  into  a  battlefield, 
but  that  a  number  of  these  men,  the  breadwinners  of  families, 
will  be  slain.  For  my  part,  I  cannot  accept  the  responsibility 
of  contenting  myself  with  merely  washing  my  hands  of  an  in- 
justice like  this.  It  might  be  a  very  politic  thing  to  say : '  There 
is  a  feeling  in  favour  of  war ;  I  protest  against  it,  but  I  wash  my 
hands  of  it,  and  shall  criticise  hereafter  the  conduct  of  the 
Colonial  Secretary. '  I  have  not  criticised  the  conduct  of  the 
right  hon.  gentleman  in  this  matter  except  indirectly,  because 
that  is  not  the  question  of  the  moment.  The  question  is  to 
do  the  best  we  can  to  put  an  end  to  this  war,  and  that  is  why  I 
have  seconded,  and  why  I  would  venture  to  urge  the  House 
to  agree  to  the  amendment  which  has  been  moved,  because 
then  the  war  would  cease  in  a  very  few  days."1 

1  Hansard,  vol.  77,  Oct.  17,  1899. 


440  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

On  October  20,  Mr.  Labouchere  pointed  out  that,  although 
the  total  cost  of  our  army  is  £22,000,000,  we  are  "positively  " 
spending  £10,000,000  in  sending  troops  to  South  Africa." 
He  added,  with  some  truth,  that,  as  the  Government  had  a 
majority,  to  ask  the  House  to  vote  against  these  proceedings 
was  useless.  But  he  declared  that,  in  his  opinion,  before 
the  war  was  over,  it  would  cost  the  country  a  hundred  mil- 
lions. A  burst  of  laughter  and  ironical  cheering  from  the 
Ministerialists  greeted  the  statement  of  the  member  for 
Northampton.  They  all  imagined  that  Buller  would  be  in 
Pretoria  before  Christmas,  and  that  there  would  even  be 
some  change  out  of  the  ten  millions  voted.  What  a  chill 
would  have  fallen  over  that  light-hearted  assembly  if  some 
hand  had  written  on  the  wall  at  that  moment  the  real  sum 
which  the  South  African  enterprise  so  gaily  entered  upon 
would  cost  the  nation!  Something  well  over  two  hundred 
millions  did  not  cover  it. r 

In  March  1900,  the  War  Loan  Bill  raising  a  sum  of  thirty- 
five  millions  was  passed  through  both  Houses  of  Parliament. 
The  events  of  the  war  which  had  taken  place  by  this  time 
were,  briefly,  these:  The  British  dispatch  which  led  up  to 
the  Boer  ultimatum  was  presented  in  Pretoria  on  September 
25,  and  the  mobilisation  of  the  Boers  commenced  on  the  27th. 
The  Transvaal  ultimatum  was  presented  to  the  British  agent 
on  October  9,  and  the  war  began  upon  the  nth.  At  the 
end  of  the  first  fortnight  the  English  claimed  the  victories 
of  Talana  and  Elandslaagte,  whilst  the  Boers  could  boast 
that  they  had  swept  the  whole  of  Natal  down  to  Ladysmith. 
At  Pretoria  there  was  great  jubiliation,  and  the  highest 
expectations  of  success  for  the  farmers'  arms  were  enter- 
tained. Before  Christmas  the  defeats  of  Nicholson's  Nek, 
Stormberg,  Magersfontein,  and  Colenso  had  plunged  Eng- 
land into  depths  of  gloom.  The  investment  of  Ladysmith 
had  been  completed,  and  the  first  stage  of  the  war  marked  by 
the  advance  of  the  Boers  into  British  territory  was  over. 

1  Henry  W.  Lucy,  The  Balfourian  Parliament. 


THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA  441 

On  the  22nd  of  December,  Lord  Roberts  had  set  sail  from 
Southampton  to  the  Cape.  To  him  the  British  Government 
had  turned  in  its  hour  of  need  to  restore  the  shaken  prestige 
of  the  British  army  and  to  bring  the  war  to  a  successful  conclu- 
sion. Their  confidence  was  justified,  though  the  conclusion 
of  the  war  was  still  far  distant.  The  horrible  disaster  of 
Spion  Kop  occurred  in  January,  but  the  middle  of  March  saw 
Lord  Roberts  in  Bloemfontein.  Ladysmith  and  Kimberley 
had  been  relieved,  and  the  whole  vast  territory  south  of  these 
points  was  in  uncontested  occupation  of  the  British  troops. 
In  Mr.  Labouchere's  speech  of  March  13,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  second  reading  of  the  War  Loan  Bill,  he  had  pleaded 
eloquently  for  a  cessation  of  hostilities  in  South  Africa. 
The  Boers,  he  said,  had  now  been  driven  out  of  British 
territory,  but  the  only  terms  upon  which  the  British  Govern- 
ment would  make  peace  were  degrading  to  a  brave  and  honest 
people,  namely  the  surrendering  of  their  independence,  and 
the  blotting  of  their  nationality  out  of  existence.  "Can 
you  tell  me  of  any  war, "  he  asked,  "in  which  the  vanquished 
side  asked  for  terms  and  were  told  that  the  victors  would  grant 
terms  only  in  the  capital  of  the  defeated  country,  and  on 
condition  of  their  surrendering  their  independence?  I  call 
this  thing  an  iniquity,  and  a  disgrace  to  this  country  to  pro- 
pose such  terms.  Perhaps  the  question  of  iniquity  does  not 
appeal  to  hon.  gentlemen  opposite.  It  is  not  only  a  crime- 
it  is  a  blunder.  I  do  not  believe  this  is  a  way  to  establish  peace 
and  harmony  and  good  feeling  in  South  Africa.  .  .  .  You  are 
at  present  appealing  to  the  lowest  passions  outside  of  this 
House.  I  do  not  believe  you  will  succeed  in  the  long  run ;  it 
may  be  that  the  people  will  be  carried  away  by  the  feeling 
which  at  present  exists  among  Englishmen,  but  they  will  soon 
see  that  they  have  been  fooled  into  this  war  by  the  vilest  body 
of  financiers  that  ever  existed  in  this  world,  and  that  the  oppor- 
tunity had  been  taken  to  lay  hold  of  the  territory  and  gold, 
which  Lord  Salisbury  himself  boasted  we  did  not  wish  for. " x 

1  Hansard,  vol.  80,  March  13,  1900. 


442  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Labouchere  was  extremely 
unpopular  in  England  during  1900.  It  was  difficult  for  the 
man  in  the  street  to  separate  his  political  attitude,  with 
regard  to  the  war,  from  that  of  the  Irish  Nationalists,  with 
whose  policy  he  had  been  so  long  identified,  and  who  wel- 
comed the  war  as  supplying  fresh  food  for  their  campaign 
of  denunciation  against  the  British  Government,  and  who 
openly  expressed  their  exultation  at  the  Boer  successes.  Mr. 
Labouchere  did  not  rejoice  at  the  British  humiliation.  The 
point  that  he  always  had  in  view  was  the  prevention  of 
more  bloodshed,  and  the  injustice  of  the  annexation  of  new 
territory  by  the  force  of  numerical  superiority.  Further,  he 
considered  that  the  negotiations  which  took  place  in  the 
summer  and  autumn  of  1899,  before  the  outbreak  of  war, 
had  not  been  carried  on  with  fairness  towards  the  Boers. 
After  the  President  of  the  Transvaal  Republic  had  agreed  to 
a  seven  years'  Franchise  Law,  retrospective  in  its  action,  for 
the  colonists,  Mr.  Chamberlain  took  exception  to  a  provision 
of  the  new  Bill,  which  required  that  the  alien  desirous  of 
burghership  should  produce  a  certificate  of  continuous 
registration  during  the  period  for  naturalisation.  He  sug- 
gested further  that  the  details  of  the  scheme  should  be  dis- 
cussed by  delegates  appointed  by  Sir  Alfred  Milner  and  the 
Transvaal  Government  (July  27).  The  Transvaal  Govern- 
ment, as  it  had  a  perfect  right  to  do,  instead  of  immediately 
accepting  Mr.  Chamberlain's  suggestion,  submitted  alterna- 
tive proposals  to  the  British  Government,  which  gave  most 
liberal  concessions  to  the  Uitlanders,  the  details  of  which  were 
to  be  discussed  with  the  British  agent  at  Pretoria.  To  these 
proposals  were  attached  certain  conditions,  one  of  which  was 
that  "  Her  Majesty's  Government  will  not  insist  further  upon 
the  assertion  of  suzerainty,  the  controversy  on  the  subject 
being  tacitly  allowed  to  drop"  (August  19).  Mr.  Conyng- 
hame  Greene,  the  British  agent  at  Pretoria,  wired  the  Boer 
proposals  and  conditions  to  Sir  Alfred  Milner.  Sir  Alfred 
Milner  wired  to  Mr.  Conynghame  Greene  in  reply:  "If 


THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA  443 

the  South  African  Republic  should  reply  to  the  invitation 
to  a  joint  enquiry  put  forward  by  Her  Majesty's  Govern- 
ment by  formally  making  the  proposals  described  in  your 
telegram,  such  a  course  would  not  be  regarded  by  Her 
Majesty's  Government  as  a  refusal  of  their  offer,  but  they 
would  be  prepared  to  consider  the  reply  of  the  South  African 
Republic  on  its  merits." 

In  Mr.  Labouchere's  opinion,  it  was  at  this  point  of  the 
negotiations  that  the  disingenuousness  of  Mr.  Chamberlain's 
action  was  most  apparent.  The  formal  reply  of  Her  Ma- 
jesty's Government  to  the  Boer  proposals  was  delivered  on 
August  30.  It  declared  that  the  Boer  proposals  were 
accepted,  but  that  the  British  Government  utterly  refused 
to  consider  the  conditions  attached  to  them.  It  was  obvious 
now  that  the  Boers  had  no  other  course  open  to  them  but  to 
fall  back  upon  the  Commission  proposed  by  Mr.  Chamber- 
lain on  July  27,  and  to  which  their  proposals  and  conditions 
were  the  alternative,  and,  according  to  Sir  Alfred  Milner's 
wire  to  Mr.  Conynghame  Greene,  understood  by  both  Gov- 
ernments as  such.  On  September  2,  therefore,  they  asked 
for  further  information  as  to  the  Joint  Committee  which 
they  were  now  par  force  majeure  and  faute  de  mieux  pre- 
pared to  accept.  The  reply  they  received  on  September  12 
was  that  "H.  M.  Government  have  been  compelled  to 
regard  the  last  proposal  of  the  Government  of  the  South 
African  Republic  as  unacceptable  in  the  form  in  which  it  was 
presented";  that  they  "cannot  now  consent  to  go  back  to 
the  proposal  for  which  those  in  the  note  of  the  Government 
of  the  Republic  of  August  19  are  intended  as  a  substitute"; 
and  that,  if  those  proposals  of  the  Transvaal  Government, 
taken  by  themselves  and  without  the  conditions  attached 
by  that  Government,  are  not  agreed  to,  "H.  M.  Government 
must  reserve  to  themselves  the  right  to  reconsider  the  situa- 
tion de  novo  and  to  formulate  their  own  proposals  for  a  final 
settlement. "  On  September  15,  the  Secretary  of  State  of 
the  Transvaal  Republic  replied  that  he  learned  with  deep 


444  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

regret  of  the  withdrawal  of  the  invitation  to  a  joint  enquiry. 
The  proposal  of  August  19,  made  by  him  in  the  name  of  his 
Government,  involved  the  danger  of  affecting  the  independ- 
ence of  the  Republic,  but  his  Government  had  set  against 
this  danger  the  advantage  of  obtaining  the  assurances  men- 
tioned in  the  conditions.  He  protested  against  the  injustice 
of  being  asked  to  grant  the  original  proposals  without  the 
conditions  annexed,  and  he  could  not  understand  Mr. 
Chamberlain's  present  refusal  to  accept  the  Commission 
which  was  his  own  alternative.  The  reply  of  the  Republic 
consequently  was  that  it  could  not  grant  the  first  half  of  the 
August  19  offer  without  the  second,  but  would  accept  the 
Joint  Commission  which  had  been  proposed  by  Mr.  Cham- 
berlain; that  it  welcomed  the  introduction  of  a  Court  of 
Arbitration,  and  was  willing  to  help  in  its  formation,  but  that 
it  was  not  clear  what  were  the  subjects  mentioned  as  outside 
the  Court  of  Arbitration,  and  it  deprecated  the  foreshadow- 
ing of  new  proposals  without  specification.  Mr.  Reitz 
finally  implored  the  acceptance  of  the  Joint  Commission, 
as  "if  H.  M.'s  Government  are  willing  and  able  to  make  this 
decision  it  will  put  an  end  to  the  present  state  of  tension,  race 
hatred  would  decrease  and  die  out,  the  prosperity  and  welfare 
of  the  South  African  Republic  and  of  the  whole  of  South 
Africa  would  be  developed  and  furthered,  and  fraternisation 
between  the  different  nationalities  would  increase."  On 
September  25  Mr.  Chamberlain  replied  that  no  conditions 
less  comprehensive  than  the  final  offer  of  H.  M.  Government 
could  be  relied  upon  to  effect  the  object  for  which  they  had 
been  striving.  The  dispatch  concluded  with  these  words: 
"H.  M.  Government  will  communicate  to  the  High  Com- 
missioner the  result  of  their  deliberations  in  a  later  dis- 
patch."  On  September  30  the  British  agent  at  Pretoria 
telegraphed  by  request  of  the  Secretary  of  State  of  the 
Republic  to  ask  what  decision  had  been  taken  by  the  British 
Government.  Mr.  Chamberlain  replied  on  October  2 
that  "the  dispatch  of  H.  M.  Government  is  being  prepared 


THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA  445 

but  will  not  be  ready  for  some  days."  In  the  meantime 
Parliament  had  been  summoned  to  grant  supplies,  the  Re- 
serves were  called  out,  and  ships  were  chartered  to  convey 
all  available  troops  to  South  Africa.  From  September  27 
to  October  8  the  President  of  the  Orange  Free  State  tele- 
graphed frequently  to  Sir  Alfred  Milner.  He  complained 
of  the  concentration  of  troops  on  the  frontiers  of  his  State 
and  of  the  Transvaal,  again  and  again  prof  erred  his  good 
offices  to  avoid  all  possibility  of  war,  and  in  almost  every 
telegram  urged  that  Her  Majesty's  Government  should  at 
once  make  known  the  "precise  nature  and  scope  of  the  con- 
cessions or  measures,  the  adoption  whereof  Her  Majesty's 
Government  consider  themselves  entitled  to  claim,  or  which 
they  suggest  as  being  necessary  or  sufficient  to  secure  a 
satisfactory  and  permanent  solution  of  existing  differences 
between  them  and  the  South  African  Republic,  whilst  at  the 
same  time  providing  a  means  for  settling  any  others  that  may 
arise  in  the  future. "  To  this  request  Sir  Alfred  Milner  made 
no  reply.1  On  October  9  the  famous  Ultimatum  was  pre- 
sented to  the  British  agent  at  Pretoria.  Amongst  other  plain 
statements  it  contained  words  to  the  effect  that  the  Trans- 
vaal felt  obliged  to  regard  the  military  force  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  its  frontiers  as  a  threat  against  the  Republic, 
and  that  it  became  necessary  to  ask  Her  Majesty's  Govern- 
ment to  give  an  assurance  that  no  further  troops  should  be 
landed  in  South  Africa,  that  troops  on  the  borders  of  the 
Republic  should  be  withdrawn  either  by  friendly  arbitration 
or  some  other  amicable  way.  In  the  event  of  a  refusal  the 
Secretary  of  State  of  the  Transvaal  must  regard  the  action 
of  Her  Majesty's  Government  as  a  formal  declaration  of  war. 
War  broke  out,  as  has  been  said,  on  October  1 1. 

When  Lord  Roberts  marched  triumphantly  into  Pretoria 
on  the  Qth  of  June,  some  important  letters  were  found  in 
the  capital  of  the  Transvaal  out  of  which  great  political 
interest  was  made  against  the  group  of  Englishmen,  of 

«  Truth,  Sept.  13,  1899. 


446  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

whom  Labouchere  was  one  of  the  most  important,  who  were 
known  as  the  "little  Englanders"  in  contradistinction  to 
the  ever  growing  numbers  of  "  Imperialists. "  These  letters 
were  sent  to  Mr.  Chamberlain,  and  a  correspondence  on  the 
subject  ensued  between  him  and  Mr.  Labouchere.  Mr. 
Labouchere  published  the  whole  of  it  in  Truth,  prefacing  the 
letters  with  the  following  remarks:1 

"The  correspondence  which  I  print  below  speaks  for  itself. 
I  had  not  supposed  that  I  was  one  of  the  three  M.  P.'s  whose 
letters  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Chamberlain,  as  I  do 
not  think  that  I  ever  wrote  to  any  one  in  Pretoria.  But  I  did, 
before  the  war,  both  write  and  talk  to  Mr.  Montagu  White,  the 
Transvaal  representative  in  London,  and  it  would  seem  that  he 
sent  some  of  my  letters  to  Pretoria.  What  there  is  requiring 
explanation  in  either  my  conversations  or  correspondence  I  do 
not  know.  The  advice  which  I  gave  to  Mr.  White  was  that  his 
Government  should  make  reasonable  concessions,  and  should 
gain  time,  in  order  to  tide  over  the  false  impression  created  by 
Mr.  Chamberlain's  appeal  to  the  passions  which  had  been  excited 
by  statements  in  regard  to  Boer  rule  derived  from  the  'kept' 
Rhodesian  press  in  South  Africa  and  the  correspondents  of  the 
English  newspapers,  who  were  nearly  all  connected  with  that 
'kept  press'  and  with  the  Rhodes  gang.  Had  my  advice  been 
followed,  there  would  have  been  no  war.  The  difficulty  which 
stood  in  the  way  of  its  being  adopted  was  that  President  Kruger 
and  other  leading  Boers  were  fully  convinced  that  Mr.  Chamber- 
lain had  been  in  the  counsels  of  the  Jameson-Rhodes  conspirators 
of  1895,  and  that — no  matter  what  concessions  the  Transvaal 
might  make — he  was  determined  to  have  his  revenge  for  Presi- 
dent Kruger  having  got  the  better  of  him  on  that  occasion. " 

Here  is  the  correspondence: 

Mr.  Chamberlain  to  Mr.  Labouchere 

COLONIAL  OFFICE,  Aug.  6,  1900. 

SIR, — I  beg  to  call  your  attention  to  the  enclosed  copy  of  a 
letter  from  Mr.  Montagu  White,  with  copies  of  two  letters  pur- 
1  Truth,  Aug.  23,  1900. 


THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA  447 

porting  to  have  been  written  by  you,  and  to  inquire  if  you  desire 
to  offer  any  explanations  or  observations  with  regard  to  them. — 
I  am,  Sir,  Your  obedient, 

J.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

(Enclosure)  Mr.  Montagu  White  to  Dr.  Reitz1 

58  VICTORIA  STREET,  LONDON, 
Aug.  4,  1899 

DEAR  DR.  REITZ, — I  feel  tired  and  done  for  to-night.  It  is 
past  six  o'clock  and  I  still  have  forty  miles  to  go  before  I  get  home. 
My  inclination  is  to  wire  to  you,  asking  you  to  tell  the  British 
Government  to  go  to  the  devil  and  to  do  their  "  darnedest. "  It 
is  perfectly  sickening  the  way  one  is  kept  in  a  continual  state 
of  suspense  and  nervous  excitement.  Everything  is  as  quiet  as 
possible  on  the  surface,  and  there  has  been  a  tremendous  decrease 
in  press  cuttings  which  is  a  sure  sign  that  matters  are  relapsing 
into  a  normal  condition.  But  I  have  been  able  to  judge  of  the 
effect  upon  our  friends  of  hints  that  we  may  not  be  able  to  accept 
the  proposed  Commission.  Without  exception,  they  are  one  and 
all  dead  against  our  refusing  it,  and  all  agree  that  we  shall  have  to 
face  a  very  serious  crisis  if  we  refuse  the  proposal,  and  that  with- 
out the  friendly  support  of  the  majority  of  the  newspapers  which 
have  hitherto  been  on  our  side.  Spender  of  the  Chronicle,  who 
has  fought  consistently  and  well  for  us,  tells  me  that  none  of  them 
can  understand  in  what  way  we  shall  be  worse  off  for  accepting 
the  Commission,  for  (if)  your  people  disagree  about  the  finding 
of  the  report  what  can  Mr.  Chamberlain  do  further?  Even  our 
best  friends  say  that  by  rejecting  the  report  of  the  Industrial 
Commission  two  years  ago,  we  have  allowed  things  to  go  so  far 
that  it  is  unwise  to  talk  of  intermeddling  in  our  home  affairs  as 
a  refusal  to  entertain  what  public  opinion  here  endorses  as  a  fair 
proposal.  The  essence  of  friendly  advice  is:  Accept  the  proposal 
in  principle,  point  out  how  difficult  it  will  be  to  arrive  at  a  satis- 
factory conclusion  as  to  statistics,  etc.,  and  how  undesirable  it 
would  be  to  have  a  miscarriage  of  the  Commission.  In  other 
words:  gain  as  much  time  as  you  can,  and  give  the  public  time 
here  to  gee  out  of  the  dangerous  frame  of  mind  which  Chamber- 

1  Secretary  of  State  of  the  Transvaal  Republic. 


448  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

Iain's  speeches  have  created.  Spender  is  of  opinion  that  after 
two  months'  delay  all  danger  will  have  vanished.  I  cannot  say 
I  share  his  optimistic  views,  for  this  sort  of  thing  has  been  going 
on  for  three  years.  Labouchere  said  to  me  this  morning :  "  Don't 
for  goodness  sake,  let  Mr.  Kruger  make  his  first  mistake  by  refus- 
ing this;  a  little  skilful  management,  and  he  will  give  Master 
Joe  another  fall. "  He  further  said:  "You  are  such  past  masters 
in  the  art  of  gaining  time,  here  is  an  opportunity;  you  surely 
have  n't  let  your  right  hands  lose  their  cunning,  and  you  ought 
to  spin  out  the  negotiations  for  quite  two  or  three  months. "  I 
must  leave  off  now.  Please  remember  one  thing:  I  do  not  send 
you  my  advice.  I  send  you  the  opinions  of  friends  and  the 
tendency  of  public  feeling  here. 

Some  one  sent  me  some  lines  parodying  R.  Kipling's  Lest  We 
Forget.  I  got  it  published  in  Truth. — Yours  very  truly, 

MONTAGU  WHITE. 

(Enclosure)  Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Montagu  White 

5  OLD  PALACE  YARD,  S.W.,  Aug.  2,  1899. 

DEAR  MR.  MONTAGU  WHITE, — You  will  see  the  lines  in 
Truth.  I  have  altered  one  or  two  words  to  make  the  grammar  all 
right.  I  do  hope  that  President  Kruger  will  manage  to  accept 
in  some  form  or  another  the  reference  (proposed  conference). 
Bannerman  and  all  our  Front  Bench  believe  that  it  is  only  a  way 
devised  by  the  Cabinet  to  let  Joe  climb  down.  The  new  Franchise 
Act  stands.  The  onus  probandi  of  showing  that  it  does  not  give 
substantial  representation  to  the  Uitlanders  and  yet  leave  the 
Boers  masters  is  with  Chamberlain.  The  difference  between  five 
and  seven  years  is  not  a  ground  for  proof.  The  details  for  regis- 
tration do  not  prove  it.  Let  President  Kruger  quote  our  Regis- 
tration Laws,  which  you  had  better  send  him,  and  do  not  forget 
that  a  lodger  has  to  register  every  year;  he  is  not  automatically 
on  the  Franchise  list.  In  connection  with  this,  Milner  suggested 
in  his  dispatch  six  years.  He  afterwards  said  that  six  was  a 
mistake  for  five.  But  Chamberlain  in  his  reply  approved  of  six. 
It  is  impossible  to  calculate  the  effect  without  knowing  how  many 
Outlanders  there  are,  and  how  long  each  has  been  in  the  country. 
To  discover  the  basis  of  inquiry  would  take  a  long  time.  As  the 


THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA  449 

decision  would  go  by  the  majority,  the  question  would  be  on  the 
Chairman,  who  would  have  a  casting  vote.  Surely  it  could  be 
arranged  with  Natal;  the  Cape  and  the  Orange  Free  State,  as 
well  as  the  Transvaal,  should  be  represented,  with  the  Chairman 
an  Englishman  who  has  not  yet  expressed  an  opinion. 

My  own  impression  is  that  comparatively  few  will  ever  become 
Boers  amongst  the  English;  they  will  not  like  to  give  up  their 
nationality.  The  President  has  a  great  opportunity  to  give  Joe 
another  fall.  If  at  the  same  time  the  Dynamite  Concession  is 
abrogated  there  will  be  a  rise  in  many  shares,  and  this  will  be 
regarded  as  a  barometer  that  everything  is  going  on  well  and 
satisfactorily.  The  great  thing  is  to  gain  time.  In  a  few  months 
we  shall  be  howling  about  something  in  another  part  of  the  world. 
— Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

(  Enclosure)     Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Montagu  White 

5  OLD  PALACE  YARD,  S.  W.,  Aug.  4,  1899. 

DEAR  MR.  WHITE, — It  is  the  general  opinion  that  Chamber- 
lain "  climbed  down. "  As  Bannerman  put  it  to  me :  "  His  speech 
was  a  little  bluster  of  his  own  with  the  main  parts  arranged  by  his 
colleagues,  and  they  sat  by  like  policemen  to  see  that  he  read 
them."  As  a  matter  of  fact  he  did  read  all  the  important  parts. 

If  the  President  agrees  to  the  Committee  it  will,  under  clever 
tactics,  take  months  to  settle  conditions,  and  then  it  will  take 
further  months  to  come  to  a  decision.  If  the  basis  is  established 
that  there  shall  be  a  substantial  representation  of  the  Uitlanders, 
yet  not  such  as  can  endanger  the  majority  of  the  Boers,  no  harm 
can  well  come  of  the  Commission.  The  only  difficulty  is  that 
it  is  a  sort  of  recognition  of  our  right  to  meddle.  But  this  might 
be  avoided  in  two  ways :  ( i )  By  getting  Schreiner  into  it  and  mak- 
ing it  a  sort  of  South  African  affair;  (2)  by  making  a  bargain  and 
agreeing  only  on  the  understanding  that  there  should  be  arbitra- 
tion on  all  matters  affecting  the  true  reading  of  the  Convention. 
But  if  the  latter  is  proposed  then  the  President  should  put  in 
some  proposal  for  the  Chief  Justices  and  one  Imperial  Judge  or 
Governor  to  be  the  tribunal. 

The  universal  opinion  is  that  the  Cabinet  has  forced  all  this 

20 


450  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

upon  Chamberlain,  and  that  they  are  determined  not  to  have 
war  and  to  do  something  to  let  him  down  easily.  Salisbury's 
speech  was  conceived  on  these  lines,  and  a  little  vague  bluster 
but  nothing  more.  I  accentuated  Banner-man's  declaration 
about  hostilities;  this  pledges  the  Liberal  party  against  war. — 
Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

Mr.  Labouchere  to  Mr.  Chamberlain 

HOTEL  AND  PENSION  WALDHAUS, 
VULPERA  TARASP,  ENGADIN  SCHWEIZ,  Aug.  18,  1900. 

SIR, — I  beg  to  acknowledge  your  letter  of  Aug.  6,  enclosing 
copy  of  a  letter  of  Mr.  Montagu  White,  with  copies  of  two  letters 
"purporting  to  have  been  written  by  me,"  and  inquiring  if  I 
desire  to  offer  any  explanation  or  observations  with  regard  to 
them. 

For  what  I  may  have  written  or  said  to  Mr.  Montagu  White 
I  am  responsible  to  the  House  of  Commons,  of  which  I  am  a 
member;  to  my  constituents  who  have  done  me  the  honour  to 
send  me  there ;  and  to  the  law.  To  you  I  owe  no  sort  of  explana- 
tion. I  ascribe,  therefore,  your  invitation  to  furnish  you  with 
one  in  respect  to  the  enclosed  letters  to  the  singular  illusion  that 
no  matter  what  course  you  may  see  fit  to  adopt,  whether  as  a 
Conservative  or  a  Liberal  Minister,  all  owe  you  a  personal 
explanation  who  take  the  liberty  to  disapprove  of  it,  and  to  do 
their  best  to  prevent  its  bringing  us  into  unnecessary  hostilities 
with  some  foreign  power.  Whilst  not  recognising  this  pretension 
on  your  part,  I  will,  however,  offer  you  some  observations  in  regard 
to  these  letters,  as  you  apparently  desire  that  I  should  do  so. 

The  letters  of  mine  enclosed  were,  I  do  not  doubt,  written  by 
me.  The  only  exception  that  I  have  to  take  to  the  copies  is  that 
a  few  of  the  words  in  them  are,  I  should  fancy,  erroneously  copied, 
as  they  do  not  make  sense.  The  advice  tendered  in  them  seems 
to  me  to  be  excellent,  and  I  know  of  no  reason  why  I  should  not 
have  addressed  it  to  Mr.  White,  who  was  then  the  representative 
of  a  country  with  which  we  were  at  peace.  Many  letters  passed 
before  the  War  between  that  gentleman  and  myself.  He  was 
most  desirous  that  all  possibility  of  war  should  be  removed,  and 


THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA  451 

that  harmony  and  good  feeling  should  be  established  on  a  firm 
basis  between  Great  Britain  and  the  Transvaal.  This  we  both 
thought  could  only  be  effected  by  a  full  recognition  of  the  Con- 
vention of  1884,  as  explained  by  Lord  Derby,  who  signed  it  for 
Great  Britain,  and  by  reasonable  concessions  on  the  part  of  the 
Transvaal  Government  in  regard  to  the  naturalisation  and  elec- 
toral franchise  of  the  Uitlanders  domiciled  in  the  Republic. 
I  therefore  suggested  that  the  Transvaal  Government  should 
grant  to  such  domiciled  aliens  naturalisation  and  electoral  fran- 
chise of  the  Uitlanders  on  precisely  the  same  terms  as  they  are 
granted  to  aliens  in  Great  Britain.  A  law  thus  framed  would, 
I  thought,  not  be  open  to  objection  on  your  part,  and  would  put 
an  end  to  all  the  carping  criticisms  raised  by  you  in  respect  to 
small  and  unimportant  details  in  the  concessions  that  you  were 
forcing  on  the  Transvaal  in  regard  to  these  matters,  and  which 
seemed  to  me  hardly  calculated  to  bring  about  a  peaceful  solution 
of  the  situation.  If  I  remember  rightly  the  last  letters  exchanged 
between  Mr.  White  and  myself  were  just  before  the  close  of  the 
normal  session  of  Parliament  last  year.  Mr.  White  in  his  letter 
informed  me  that  he  had  received  a  communication  from  Mr. 
Reitz,  the  Transvaal  Sec.  of  State,  in  which  that  gentleman  told 
him  that,  although  he  had  always  been  a  strong  advocate  for  all 
reasonable  reforms  in  respect  of  the  Uitlanders,  and  although 
he  had  used  all  his  influence  to  promote  a  peaceful  solution  of  the 
pending  issues  between  the  two  countries,  your  despatches  were 
so  persistently  insulting  in  their  tone,  and  all  concessions  made 
by  his  Government  were  so  invariably  met  by  you  with  fresh 
demands,  that  even  the  most  moderate  of  the  Transvaal  Burghers 
were  becoming  convinced  that  you  were  determined  to  oblige 
them  either  to  surrender  at  discretion  to  all  that  you  might 
demand,  or  to  defend  by  arms  the  position  secured  to  the  Trans- 
vaal by  the  Convention  of  1884.  He  therefore  suggested  that 
the  negotiations  should  be  taken  in  hand  by  Lord  Salisbury, 
in  which  case  he  was  convinced  that  a  settlement  satisfactory 
to  both  sides  would  be  easily  come  to.  As  I  entirely  agreed 
with  this  opinion  of  Mr.  Reitz,  and  believed  that  you  were 
the  chief  impediment  to  such  a  settlement,  I  replied  to  Mr. 
White  that  the  tenor  of  Mr.  Reitz 's  communication  should 
be  conveyed  to  a  leading  member  of  the  Cabinet,  and  that 


452  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

I  hoped — although  I  did  not  expect — that  the  suggestion  would 
bear  fruit. 

As  I  gathered  from  your  observations  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons that  you  had  not  made  up  your  mind  whether  you  would 
publish  the  letters  of  Members  of  Parliament  to  Transvaal 
authorities  that  had  fallen  into  your  hands,  I  will — so  far  as  my 
letters  are  concerned — relieve  you  of  further  consideration  by 
publishing  them  myself,  together  with  this  correspondence.  I 
have  often  urged  that  the  public  should  have  the  advantage  of  a 
full  knowledge  of  all  documents  which  are  likely  to  enable  them 
to  form  a  sound  judgment  in  respect  to  the  issues  that  have  arisen 
in  South  Africa.  Might  I,  with  all  respect,  venture  to  suggest 
to  you  that  you  should  follow  my  example?  The  Secretary  of 
State  for  Foreign  Affairs  (whoever  he  may  be)  and  Her  Majesty's 
representatives  in  foreign  capitals  correspond  not  only  by  de- 
spatches, but  by  what  they  are  pleased  to  term  "private  letters, " 
which  are  to  all  intents  and  purposes  despatches.  I  presume 
that  the  same  course  is  usual  between  Secretaries  of  State  for 
the  Colonies  and  Her  Majesty's  Colonial  Governors.  You  have 
announced  that  you  are  in  favour  of  a  "new  diplomacy"  in 
which  nothing  is  kept  back  from  the  public.  Would  it  be  too 
much  to  ask  you  to  inaugurate  the  "new  diplomacy  "  by  publish- 
ing all  the  so-called  private  letters  that  have  been  exchanged 
between  you  and  the  Governors  of  Natal  and  the  Cape  Colony ; 
and  all  the  letters  and  despatches  exchanged  between  these 
Governors  and  our  military  commanders  in  South  Africa,  of 
which  you  may  have  copies?  Without  these  documents  it  is 
impossible  that  either  the  House  of  Commons  or  the  electors  of 
the  United  Kingdom  can  form  a  true  conclusion  in  regard  to  the 
"diplomacy"  that  led  to  the  war,  or  be  able  to  affix  the  responsi- 
bility on  the  right  shoulders  in  respect  to  our  lack  of  preparation 
for  hostilities  in  South  Africa  and  our  initial  reverses.  If  it  is 
too  much  to  hope  that  you  will  act  on  this  suggestion,  I  would 
venture  to  urge  that  at  least  you  should  publish  the  correspond- 
ence between  yourself  and  Mr.  Hawksley  in  regard  to  your 
alleged  knowledge  of  the  contemplated  Rhodes-Jameson  con- 
spiracy of  1 894.  Mr.  Hawksley  is  still,  and  then  was,  the  solicitor 
of  the  Chartered  Company  of  South  Africa,  and  is  a  close  friend 
and  confidant  of  Mr.  Rhodes.  When  the  Parliamentary  Com- 


THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA  453 

mittee  of  Inquiry  into  all  connected  with  the  conspiracy  was 
sitting,  Mr.  Hawksley  was  a  witness.  He  alluded  to  this  corre- 
spondence. But  when  I  wished  to  examine  him  about  it — which 
was  my  right  as  a  member  of  the  Committee  according  to  Parlia- 
mentary usage — this  was  not  permitted  by  the  Committee. 
After  the  Report  of  the  Committee  was  published  Mr.  Hawksley 
made  public  his  conviction  that,  if  this  correspondence  saw  the 
light,  a  guilty  knowledge  of  the  conspiracy  would  be  brought 
home  to  you.  When  the  debate  on  the  Report  took  place  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  he  placed  the  correspondence  in  the  hands  of 
a  member  with  instructions  to  read  it  if  you  made  any  attack 
upon  Mr.  Rhodes.  Far,  however,  from  doing  this,  you  went  out 
of  your  way  to  assert  that  Mr.  Rhodes  had  done  nothing  to 
invalidate  his  rights  to  be  considered  an  honourable  man,  al- 
though only  a  few  days  before  you  had  agreed  to  a  report  in 
which  he  was  branded  as  having  been  guilty  of  dishonourable 
conduct.  Since  then,  again  and  again,  you  have  been  asked  to 
produce  the  correspondence.  But  this  you  have  persistently 
refused  to  do,  although  no  public  interest  could  suffer  by  the 
production.  Yet,  if  Mr.  Hawksley  is  wrong  in  the  inference  he 
deduces  from  the  correspondence,  it  is  obvious  that  its  publication 
would  go  far  to  allay  the  suspicion  which  led  President  Kruger  to 
doubt  your  desire  for  a  peaceful  solution  of  the  strained  relations 
that  existed  between  Her  Majesty's  Government  and  that  of  the 
Transvaal  Republic,  and  which  even  now  militates  against  all 
good  feeling  between  the  colonists  of  South  Africa  of  British  and 
Dutch  origin. 

I  trust  that  you  will  excuse  my  venturing  to  make  these  sugges- 
tions. I  do  so  because  I  heartily  agree  with  you  as  to  the  desira- 
bility of  the  "new  diplomacy. "  It  is  the  only  way  in  which  that 
popular  control  can  be  established  over  the  Executive  which  is 
essential  in  a  self-governing  community,  if  it  is  to  escape  from 
falling  under  the  domination  of  some  purely  unscrupulous  adven- 
turer gifted  with  a  ready  tongue. 

I  believe  with  my  leader,  Sir  Henry  Campbell-Bannerman, 
that  the  war  might  and  ought  to  have  been  avoided,  and  I  can- 
not help  hoping  that  my  letters  which  have  fallen  into  your  hands 
will  show  you  that  I  laboured  to  the  best  of  my  ability  in  order 
that  it  should  be  avoided.  Unfortunately  these  efforts  were  not 


454  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

successful.  The  war  was  commenced  under  a  lamentable  ignor- 
ance on  the  part  of  Her  Majesty's  Ministers  of  the  resistance 
which  the  two  Dutch  Republics  would  oppose  to  our  arms. 
Reverses  followed  owing  to  the  meddling  of  civilians  in  military 
matters.  Pretoria,  Johannesburg,  and  Bloemfontein  are  in  our 
hands.  The  Orange  River  Free  State  has  been  annexed.  The 
Transvaal  Republic  has  been  annexed.  Under  these  circum- 
stances peace  and  prosperity  can  only  be  restored  in  South 
Africa  when  all  suspicion  is  removed  that  the  Secretary  of  State 
for  the  Colonies  was  actuated  by  his  previous  relations  with  the 
Rhodes-Jameson  conspiracy  in  forcing  a  war.  I  am  sure,  too, 
that  you  will  agree  with  me  that  it  will  not  be  right  for  the  electors 
of  the  United  Kingdom  to  be  called  upon  to  pronounce  an  opinion 
on  the  policy  of  a  war  which  has  cost  us  thousands  of  valuable 
lives  and  tens  of  millions  of  money,  as  well  as  on  the  mode  in 
which  the  war  has  been  conducted,  until  all  that  can  enable  them 
to  arrive  at  a  conclusion  has  seen  the  light. — I  am,  Sir,  Your 
obedient  servant, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

P.  S. — If  you  desire  to  offer  any  explanations  or  observations 
with  regard  to  your  action  in  respect  to  South  Africa,  they  will 
receive  due  consideration. 

The  Rt.  Hon.  J.  Chamberlain,  etc.,  etc. 

Mr.  Labouchere  wisely  remarked  at  about  this  period  of 
the  South  African  War:  "War  is  war.  The  old  Greek  line 
holds  good  that  in  war  the  great  ones  go  mad,  and  the  people 
where  it  takes  place  weep.  This  must  inevitably  always  be 
the  case."  With  equal  force,  but  less  elegance,  he  also 
remarked:  "I  do  not  waste  my  time  in  answering  abuse. 
I  am  accustomed  to  it  and  I  thrive  under  it  like  a  field  that 
benefits  by  the  manure  that  is  carted  on  to  it."  He  must 
have  thriven  exceedingly  during  the  summer  of  1900,  for 
the  amount  of  abuse  collected  and  thrown  over  him  was 
phenomenal.  Most  of  it  was  extracted  from  the  most 
shadowy  appearances  of  fact  possible.  The  Conference,  or 
Commission,  referred  to  in  the  Pretoria  correspondence,  was 


THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA  455 

understood  by  papers  of  quite  high  standing,  such  even  as 
the  Birmingham  Post,  to  be  the  Bloemfontein  Conference, 
the  abortive  proceedings  of  which  had  come  to  an  end  early 
in  June,  1899.  Nevertheless,  Mr.  Labouchere  was  accused 
by  the  press  of  having,  in  his  letters  to  Mr.  Montagu  White, 
elaborated  a  scheme,  to  make  the  conference  at  Bloemfontein 
not  only  a  failure,  but  a  deliberately  planned  sham.  With 
regard  to  the  cry  of  treason  which  was  raised  against  him 
indiscriminately,  the  dates  on  the  letters — even  had  his  com- 
munications been  of  a  treasonable  nature — rendered  such  a 
charge  childish  in  the  extreme. 

As  soon  as  Mr.  Labouchere  received  Mr.  Chamberlain's 
letter  with  its  enclosures,  which  followed  him  to  the  retired 
Swiss  Valley  where  he  was  spending  his  holiday,  he  wrote 
at  once  to  the  leader  of  his  party  telling  him  of  what  had 
occurred.  Sir  Henry  Campbell-Bannerman  was  spending 
August  at  Marienbad,  and  wrote  him  the  following  letter 
in  reply: 

MARIENBAD,  Aug.  22,  1900. 

MY  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — I  am  much  interested  in  your  story, 
and  shall  look  forward  to  my  Truth  with  extra  avidity.  All  you 
describe  was  perfectly  proper  and  legitimate  this  time  last  year, 
or  indeed  at  any  time :  and  where  high  treason  comes  in  I  cannot 
see.  My  little  facetiousness  will  do  the  great  man  no  harm  if  it 
is  published.  I  remember  the  fact  perfectly.  All  the  while  the 
statesman  was  speaking,  Aaron-Balfour  and  Hur-Hicks  Beach 
were  not  holding  up  his  hands,  but  watching,  with  anxious  faces, 
his  every  word. 

Mark  Lockwood,  who  is  here,  told  me  that  you  were  one 
culprit,  and  that  the  other  was  no  other  than  the  ingenuous 
John  Ellis,  who  was  guilty  of  writing  to  some  lady  asking  whether 
the  stories  of  strange  doings  under  martial  law  were  authentic! 
If  this  is  all  one  may  exclaim  tant&ne  anintis  caltstibus  ira? 
Can  our  Sec.  of  State  be  so  small-minded! 

What  a  gorgeous  palace  you  are  living  in!  It  quite  eclipses 
anything  here,  even  in  your  favourite  St.  John's  Wood  quarter. 


456  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

They  are  all  there:  at  least  a  fair  representation,  ready  for  Him. 
But  alas  He  does  not  come.  Weather  superb  here,  but  not  much 
company  to  amuse  or  interest. — Yours, 

H.  C.  B. 

The  war  dragged  on  until  the  May  of  1902,  when  the  Boers 
were  obliged  to  make  peace,  not  so  much  on  account  of  the 
military  situation  as  because  the  burghers  were  weary  of 
fighting  and  wanted  to  lay  down  their  arms.  And  what  else 
could  be  expected  of  them?  Half  the  national  army  were 
prisoners  of  war,  nearly  four  thousand  had  been  killed,  the 
rest  were  weakening  and  dwindling  hourly,  twenty  thousand 
women  and  children  had  died  in  the  concentration  camps, 
thousands  more  were  perishing  on  the  veld.  There  was  no 
help  from  Cape  Colony,  no  help  from  Europe,  no  help  from 
the  sympathetic  minority  in  England  itself. T  The  national 
representatives  of  the  South  African  Republic  and  the  Orange 
Free  State  were  given  three  days  in  which  to  consider  the 
conditions  of  peace  which  were  put  before  them  by  Sir 
Alfred  Milner,  and  which  they  were  told  were  absolutely 
final.  Their  answer  was  given  on  the  3ist,  at  five  minutes 
past  eleven,  only  an  hour  before  the  expiry  of  the  term  of 
grace.  The  last  few  moments  of  their  conference  were 
occupied  by  President  Schalk  Burger,  who  closed  the  melan- 
choly meeting  with  these  words: 

"We  are  standing  here  at  the  grave  of  the  two  Republics. 
Much  yet  remains  to  be  done,  although  we  shall  not  be  able 
to  do  it  in  the  official  capacities  which  we  have  formerly 
occupied.  Let  us  not  draw  our  hands  back  from  the  work 
which  it  is  our  duty  to  accomplish.  Let  us  ask  God  to 
guide  us,  and  to  show  us  how  we  shall  be  able  to  keep  our 
nation  together.  We  must  be  ready  to  forgive  and  forget 
whenever  we  meet  our  brethren.  That  part  of  our  nation 
which  has  proved  unfaithful  we  must  not  reject." 

In  considering  the  part  Mr.  Labouchere  played  in  the 

1  Times'  History  of  the  War  in  South  Africa,  vol.  v. 


THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA  457 

discussions  that  took  place  in  Parliament  and  in  the  press, 
during  the  pitiful  struggle,  no  attitude  but  one  of  admiration 
for  his  consistency  and  envy  of  his  courage  can  be  maintained 
for  a  moment.  This  chapter  cannot  be  better  closed  than 
with  a  repetition  of  his  own  words,  expressed  valiantly  at 
the  moment  when  he  was  of  all  men  in  England  perhaps,  the 
most  unpopular:  "The  best  settlement  that  can  be  made 
now  will  be  worse  for  all  parties  than  the  settlement  which 
could  have  been  effected  by  tact  and  self-restraint  had  the 
Boers  never  been  goaded  into  war.  I  adhere  to  everything 
that  I  have  ever  said  as  to  the  causes  that  brought  on  this 
war,  with  all  its  disastrous  results.  I  retract  not  one  word 
that  I  have  published  in  Truth,  or  spoken  in  Parliament,  or 
written  in  any  letter,  or  uttered  in  any  shape  or  form  about 
the  Chamberlain  diplomacy  and  the  Chamberlain  war."1 
1  Truth,  Sept  6,  1900. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
LABOUCHERE  AND  SOCIALISM 

A  X  TE  have  seen  the  depth  and  intensity  of  Labouchere's 
V  V  political  views.  Conservatism  in  its  Tory  or  Whig 
form  he  hated  and  relentlessly  fought.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  some  of  the  modern  developments 
of  the  social  side  of  radical  policy  since  his  retirement  from 
politics  would  be  far  from  meeting  with  his  approval.  The 
fact  is  that  he  was  as  strongly  anti-socialist  as  anti-conserva- 
tive. He  believed  in  competition  as  a  principle  of  social 
existence  and  inequality  as  a  natural  fact,  although  he  held 
firmly  that  the  natural  inequality  of  men  should  not  be 
reinforced  or  distorted  by  the  artificial  inequality  of  rank. 
He  did  not  believe  that  the  task  of  government  could  rightly 
be  held  to  imply  moral  responsibility  towards  weaklings; 
such  as  were  unable  to  survive  by  themselves  should  not  be 
assisted  to  do  so.  This  was  his  theory ;  in  his  personal  rela- 
tions with  others  he  often  failed  to  practise  it.  "A  fair 
field  and  no  favour"  was  his  social  formula.  Government 
might  legitimately  intervene  to  prevent  such  abuse  of 
opportunity  as  might  result  from  the  business  relations  of 
employers  and  employees;  but  when  all  was  done  that 
could  be  done  in  that  way,  it  was  a  man's  natural  qualities 
that  enabled  him  to  swim  or  doomed  him  to  sink.  Any 
attempt  to  interfere  by  legislation  with  this  ultimate  differ- 
entiation of  nature  was  in  his  opinion  immoral  and  senti- 
mental folly.  A  Cabinet  had  no  charge  of  souls,  it  was 

458 


LABOUCHERE  AND  SOCIALISM  459 

merely  a  business  concern  running  the  affairs  of  the  nation 
as  cheaply  and  effectively  as  possible. 

It  is  evident  that  a  man  holding  these  opinions  could  not 
be  other  than  unfavourable  to  Socialism.  The  question  of 
Socialism,  indeed,  as  a  practical  factor  in  politics  hardly 
presented  itself  during  the  most  active  period  of  his  political 
life,  but  in  later  days  it  came  to  the  fore,  and  that,  as  might 
have  been  expected,  in  his  own  constituency,  so  largely  com- 
posed of  workers.  In  going  through  Mr.  Labouchere's 
papers  I  have  come  across  the  report  of  a  public  debate  which 
he  held  with  Mr.  Hyndman,  the  well-known  Socialist  leader, 
in  the  Town  Hall  of  Northampton.  The  discussion  is  inter- 
esting as  illustrating  very  clearly  Mr.  Labouchere's  own 
view  of  the  whole  problem  of  labour  and  also  as  showing  the 
definite  line  of  cleavage  between  the  spirit  of  the  older 
radicalism  in  popular  estimation,  at  all  events,  and  much  that 
is  identified  with  the  radicalism  of  to-day. 

Mr.  Labouchere  had  been  heckled  in  a  more  or  less 
friendly  way  by  some  Socialist  listeners  at  one  of  his  meetings 
and  had  in  consequence  consented  to  meet  Mr.  Hyndman 
in  debate.  The  subject  of  discussion  was:  "The  socialisa- 
tion of  the  means  of  production,  distribution,  and  exchange 
to  be  controlled  by  a  Democratic  State  in  the  interest  of  the 
entire  community,  and  the  complete  emancipation  of  labour 
from  the  domination  of  capitalism  and  landlordism,  with 
the  establishment  of  social  and  economic  equality  between 
the  sexes. " 

Mr  Hyndman  opened  the  discussion  with  a  speech  of 
great  eloquence.  He  began  by  denouncing  the  terrible  evils 
of  poverty  and  sickness  among  the  working  classes.  "  There 
are  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  England  large  pro- 
portions of  the  population  sunk  into  the  most  terrible  misery 
— misery  which  I  will  defy  you  to  find  equalled  in  the  most 
savage  tribes  on  the  planet."  The  growth  of  wealth  and 
poverty  were  admitted  to  be  simultaneous  and  out  of  the 
total  wealth  produced  the  workers  only  took  a  quarter  or, 


460  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

on  the  most  favourable  showing,  a  third.  "That  means  that 
for  every  stroke  of  work  the  producer  does  for  himself  he 
does  three  for  other  people.  It  had  been  said  that  the  pre- 
valent misery  had  been  exaggerated  by  Socialists,  but 
according  to  the  statistics  of  Mr.  Charles  Booth,  who  was  no 
Socialist,  180,000  families  were  living  in  London  below  the 
level  at  which  a  family  could  subsist.  City  life  debilitated 
country  stock,  and  the  third  and  fourth  generations  of  those 
who  have  come  into  our  great  cities  become  valueless  even 
for  capitalists  to  make  tools  out  of." 

All  this  was  misery  due  to  capitalists  and  the  system  of 
wagedom.  On  the  other  hand,  the  economic  forms  of  to- 
day were  rapidly  weakening,  and  the  probability  was  that 
capitalism  would  drift  much  sooner  than  was  expected  into 
universal  bankruptcy.  "I  long  to  see — I  am  not  afraid 
to  repeat  the  words — a  complete  social  revolution,  which 
shall  transform  our  present  society,  by  inevitable  causes, 
from  senseless  and  miserable  competition,  in  which  men  fight 
and  struggle  with  one  another  like  pigs  at  a  trough  (the 
biggest  hog  perhaps  getting  his  nose  in  first,  and,  it  may  be, 
upsetting  the  whole  thing),  into  glorious  and  universal  co- 
operation where  each  shall  work  for  all  and  all  for  each. 

"Even  now,  if  it  were  not  for  competition,  there  would 
be  plenty,  and  more  than  plenty,  for  all.  I  say  that  the 
economic  forms  are  ready  for  the  transformation  I  have 
spoken  of.  But  first,  what  is  our  position  of  to-day?  The 
old  Malthusian  delusions  are  gone.  Everybody  can  see 
that  where  the  power  to  produce  wealth  is  increasing  a 
hundredfold,  at  the  same  time  the  population  is  increasing 
but  one  per  cent,  per  annum.  It  is  not  over-population  that 
causes  the  difficulty,  but  the  miserable  system  of  distributing 
the  wealth  which  the  population  creates.  What  are  the 
conditions  to-day?  What  are  the  powers  of  production 
at  the  control  of  mankind?  Never  in  the  history  of  man 
were  they  near  what  they  were  to-day.  At  this  present 
moment,  Mr.  Chairman,  according  to  the  evidence  of  the 


LABOUCHERE  AND   SOCIALISM  461 

American  statist,  Mr.  Atkinson,  on  the  great  factory  farms 
in  the  west  of  America,  four  men,  working  with  improved 
and  competent  machinery  upon  the  soil,  will  provide  enough 
food  for  1000;  and  in  every  other  department  of  industry  it  is 
true  in  a  like,  or  almost  in  a  like  degree.  The  power  of  man 
to  produce  cloth,  linen,  boots,  for  instance,  is  infinitely 
greater  than  ever  before  in  the  history  of  the  race.  What  is 
more,  it  has  trebled,  quadrupled,  centupled  within  the  last 
fifty  or  a  hundred  years.  What  is  then  your  difficulty  at 
the  present  moment?  Not  as  in  old  times,  a  difficulty  to 
produce  enough  wealth,  but  the  fact  that  your  very  machines 
which  are  so  powerful  to  make  wealth  for  all,  are  used  against 
you  in  order  to  turn  thousands  of  you  out  on  the  streets. 
It  is  no  longer,  as  it  was  in  some  earlier  communities,  the 
power  to  produce  wealth  that  is  lacking.  In  Northampton 
as  in  every  industrial  town  in  England,  you  see  great  mechan- 
ical forces  around  you,  but  the  workmen  instead  of  control- 
ling the  machines  are  controlled  by  them.  And  the  products? 
What  is  our  theory?  This.  All  production  to-day  is 
practically  social.  Everything  that  is  produced  is  produced 
for  exchange  and  in  order  to  make  profit.  Commodities 
are  socially  produced  by  co-operation  on  the  farm,  in  the 
great  workshop,  in  the  mine.  But  the  moment  the  product 
is  produced  it  ceases  to  belong  to  those  who  have  produced 
it  and  goes  into  the  hands  of  the  employing  capitalist,  who 
uses  it  in  order  that  he  may  make  out  of  it  a  personal  gain. 
Consequently,  you  have  here  a  direct  and  distinct  antagon- 
ism between  the  form  of  production  and  the  form  of  exchange. 
On  the  one  hand,  you  have  got  great  mechanical  forces 
socially  used  simply  for  production  for  profit,  whereas  if 
they  were  socially  used  and  the  product  socially  exchanged 
every  member  of  the  community  would  benefit.  To-day 
every  increase  in  the  power  of  machinery  may  result,  fre- 
quently does  result,  in  hundreds,  or  thousands,  or  tens  of 
thousands  of  hands  being  thrown  out  unemployed  on  the 
market.  Under  the  system  of  society  we  are  inevitably 


462  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

coming  to  those  very  powers  which  will  engender  wealth, 
happiness,  and  contentment  for  all." 

Mr.  Labouchere  then  rose  and  replied  as  follows: 
"As  your  Chairman  has  already  told  you,  this  meeting 
is  the  outcome  of  a  remark  I  made  the  other  day  when  I  was 
down  here.  Some  of  those  who  entertain  strong  Socialist 
views  were  asking  me  this  or  that  question  on  the  occasion 
of  my  giving  an  account  of  my  stewardship  before  the  electors 
of  this  town.  I  pointed  out  that  Socialism  was  only  one  of 
the  subjects  I  had  got  to  deal  with,  but  if  they  would  excuse 
me  from  going  into  details  then  I  should  be  able  to  come  down 
and  discuss  with  them.  I  did  not  anticipate  then  that  we 
were  to  have  the  pleasure  of  Mr.  Hyndman's  company  in 
that  discussion.  I  thought  it  was  to  be  a  sort  of  free-and- 
easy  between  the  Socialists  and  myself.  But  you  have  sent 
for  your  big  gun  to  demolish  me.  I  can  only  lay  before  you 
my  own  views  and  those  of  the  Radical  Party  upon  social 
matters,  and  make  a  few  observations,  showing,  as  I  think, 
that  Mr.  Hyndman's  system,  a  very  millennial  system  it  is  no 
doubt,  is  neither  practicable,  nor,  if  carried  out,  would  effect 
the  ends  which  he  anticipates.  Now,  Mr.  Hyndman's  sys- 
tem, I  fully  admit,  is  for  the  entire  regeneration — he  has  told 
us  so,  I  think — of  the  world.  It  is  to  be  carried  out  by  a 
scheme  which  has  never  yet,  since  the  commencement  of  the 
world,  been  tried.  No  doubt,  as  Mr.  Hyndman  has  stated, 
there  are  evils,  very  great  evils,  and  much  misery  in  the  world 
under  the  present  system.  But  it  is  not  enough  to  prove  that 
to  show  that  any  particular  remedy  will  do  away  with  them. 
There  is,  no  doubt,  a  great  deal  of  sickness  in  this  world.  That 
we  all  admit.  But  we  should  be  amused  if  a  doctor  came  for- 
ward and  said:  'If  you  try  this  particular  pill  you  will  find 
that  all  sickness  will  be  driven  away  from  the  entire  world. 
You  are  a  criminal,  you  are  mistaken,  if  you  don't  take  that 
pill.'  But  Mr.  Hyndman's  plan  goes  much  further  than 
the  example  of  the  pill.  You  must  remember  that  if  Mr. 
Hyndman's  plan  were  not  successful  it  would  ruin  this 


LABOUCHERE  AND   SOCIALISM  463 

country  and  everyone  in  it.  Surely,  then,  it  is  our  business 
as  practical  men  to  look  thoroughly  and  cautiously  into  this 
plan  before  we  adopt  it.  Mr.  Hyndman  himself  will  admit 
that  it  is,  at  least,  a  leap  in  the  dark.  Mr.  Hyndman  has  a 
light  in  his  hand,  but  this  light  is  not  sufficient  to  tell  us 
what  would  occur  if  we  were  to  take  this  leap.  I  am  not 
going  to  say  just  now  whether  it  would  be  successful  or 
unsuccessful;  all  I  say  is,  we  ought  to  look  at  this  matter  in 
a  thorough  strict  and  business  manner,  not  dealing  with  it  in 
vague  generalities,  but  looking  into  it  in  all  its  details,  be- 
cause when  it  comes  to  a  question  of  any  business,  the  real 
consideration  in  deciding  whether  the  business  is  a  sound  one 
or  an  unsound  one  is  not  of  generalities  but  essentially  of 
details.  Now  I  think  that  Mr.  Hyndman,  whether  his  plan  be 
good  or  not,  somewhat  exaggerates  the  evils  of  the  present  sys- 
tem. Mr.  Hyndman  told  us  just  now  that  in  towns  labour  was 
in  such  a  condition  that  those  who  engaged  in  labour  faded 
out  in  three  generations.  Well,  I  confess  I  was  astonished  at 
that.  I  don't  suppose  you  are  all  descended  from  Norman 
ancestors  or  anything  of  that,  but  I  put  it  to  you.  Many 
of  you  can  surely  remember  that  you  had  great-grandfathers; 
many  of  you  had  great-grandfathers  who  lived  in  Northamp- 
ton. There  are  many  of  you  whose  grandfathers,  whose 
fathers  were  engaged  in  labour.  You  are  engaged  in  labour 
yourselves.  Do  you  feel  yourselves  such  a  puny  miserable 
body  of  men  that  you  are  going  absolutely  to  die  out?  But 
I  forget.  It  is  not  that  you  are  going  to  die  out,  you  have 
died  out  according  to  Mr.  Hyndman.  Then  what  do  I  see 
before  me?  As  the  American  says:  'Is  there  ghosts  here?' 
Are  you  human  beings?  There  you  stand;  you  have  been 
engaged  in  trade;  you  have  been  for  many  generations  in 
Northampton ;  I  do  think  you  have  utterly  deteriorated— 
that  you  are  absolutely  worth  nothing.  But  statistics  prove 
the  contrary  of  what  Mr.  Hyndman  says.  If  you  take  the 
death-rate  in  any  large  town — Manchester,  Birmingham,  or 
London,  for  instance — you  will  find  that,  so  far  from  having 


464  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

gone  up,  it  has  gone  down.  Notwithstanding  the  misery 
that  no  doubt  exists,  the  towns  are  more  healthy  now  than 
before.  Now,  I  do  not  think  that  Mr.  Hyndman  seems  to 
understand  precisely  the  present  system  under  which  we  live. 
['How  about  yourself?']  My  friend  says  'How  about 
myself?'  I  am  going  to  explain  the  present  system.  In  an 
argument  it  is  always  desirable  to  take  some  common  ground, 
and  we  may  take  this  as  a  common  ground:  the  end  of  all 
government  is  to  secure  to  the  greatest  numbers  such  a  con- 
dition of  existence  that  all  may  obtain  fair  wages  for  a  fair 
day's  work,  and  that  all  may  be  employed;  and  that  the 
government  is  good  or  bad  in  proportion  as  it  approaches 
to  this  goal.  Now,  gentlemen,  there  are  Individualists  and 
there  are  Collectivists.  Modern  Radicalism,  I  would  point 
out  to  you,  recognises  this  perfectly.  It  recognises  perfectly 
that  while  Individualism  is  a  necessary  basis  for  social  organ- 
isation, yet  there  is  a  very  great  deal  that  the  State  can  do. 
Modern  Radicalism  is  in  favour  of  both  Collectivism  and 
Individualism.  Now  I  will  read  to  you  some  words  I  wrote 
down  some  time  ago — words  that  were  used  by  a  statesman 
whom  I  do  not  always  agree  with  on  foreign  politics,  but  who, 
in  domestic  politics,  is  a  very  sensible  man.  Speaking 
before  some  association,  Lord  Rosebery  said  this: 

"'Do  not  be  frightened  by  words  or  phrases  in  carrying 
out  your  designs,  but  accept  help  from  whatever  quarter  it 
comes.  The  world  seems  to  be  tottering  now  between  two 
powers,  neither  of  which  I  altogether  follow.  The  one 
is  Socialism,  the  other  is  Individualism.  I  follow  neither 
the  one  school  nor  the  other,  but  something  may  be  bor- 
rowed from  the  spirit  of  each  to  get  the  best  qualities  of 
each — to  borrow  from  Socialism  its  large,  general  con- 
ception of  municipal  life,  and  from  Individualism  to  take 
its  spirit  of  self-respect  and  self-reliance  in  all  practical 
affairs. ' 

"Upon  that  subject  those  are  essentially  my  views;  and 
I  would  contend  they  are  the  views  of  the  Radical  Party 


LABOUCHERE   AND   SOCIALISM  465 

as  it  at  present  exists.  Now  I  am  coming  to  our  present 
system.  I  am  going  to  say  something  for  this  poor  old 
system.  I  have  often,  in  different  parts  of  Northampton, 
attacked  the  details  of  the  system.  I  am  now  going  to  say 
there  is  something  good  in  it.  Mr.  Hyndman  seems  to 
consider  that  the  world  is  composed  of  a  great  many  men  who 
are  engaged  in  labour  on  the  one  side,  and  on  the  other  a 
great  many  huge  capitalists  who  exploit  those  men.  Mr. 
Hyndman  told  you  that  the  man  engaged  in  manual  labour 
only  receives  a  third  of  the  value  of  his  labour,  and  that  the 
other  two-thirds  go  to  those  horrible  capitalists.  Gentlemen, 
I  essentially  and  absolutely  deny  that  such  is  the  case.  But 
allow  me  to  point  first  to  these  capitalists.  Now  a  difference 
is  often  made  between  the  amount  obtained  by  labour  and 
the  amount  obtained  by  those  who  do  not  engage  in  manual 
labour.  It  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  arrive  at  exact  figures, 
and  for  this  reason,  that  when  you  take  what  you  call  the 
national  income  of  the  country  it  is  often  forgotten  that  the 
national  income  is  very  much  counted  twice  or  three  times 
over.  Take,  in  the  first  place,  the  income  tax  returns.  I 
want  to  show  you  how  money  is  really  distributed.  There  is 
about  £100,000,000  coming  to  individuals  in  England  from 
investments  in  foreign  bonds.  Very  well,  and  you  surely 
will  admit  that  that  is  not  derived  from  the  labour  of  English- 
men. Then  £49,000,000  is  paid  to  officials.  It  sounds  an 
enormous  quantity,  this  £49,000,000  paid  to  officials  of  the 
imperial  and  local  government.  I  have  often  thought  that 
a  great  many  officials  are  paid  a  great  deal  too  high,  but  we 
are  not  entering  into  that  this  evening,  and  there  must  be 
some  officials ;  there  must  be  some  government,  and  payment 
of  the  officials  does  not  directly  come  from  the  sweat  and 
labour  of  working  men.  Then  there  is  £143,000,000  derived 
from  public  companies.  Now  these  public  companies  are 
all  in  shares.  These  shares,  too,  are  held  by  small  men,  not 
by  great  men.  A  vast  number  of  men  hold  them.  Remem- 
ber that  the  whole  system  of  limited  liability  companies  are 
30 


466  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

really  created  in  order  to  enable  small  men  to  act  together 
and  hold  their  own  against  the  very  rich  men. 

I  now  come  to  the  real  amount  which  is  directly  derived 
from  production  and  distribution,  banking  and  such  like; 
which  directly  goes  into  their  pockets  from  the  labour  of 
working  men.  For  this  amount  you  must  consult  what  is 
called  Schedule  D  of  the  Income  Tax.  That  schedule  puts 
down  the  professions  and  trades.  Altogether  the  total  is 
£147,000,000  on  which  the  tax  is  raised.  That  is  the  amount 
of  the  income.  Now,  if  you  take  the  professions,  law,  med- 
icine, art,  etc.,  as  producing  £67,000,000 — I  believe  that  is 
considered  a  fair  amount — £80,000,000  is  left  for  all  the  trad- 
ers, all  the  shopkeepers,  all  the  bankers,  and  all  the  middle- 
men of  the  entire  country.  Well  now,  you  must  remember 
another  thing.  You  must  remember  that  these  incomes  are 
not  eaten  by  the  men  who  have  them,  but  really  go  back  to 
labour.  ['  No,  no. ']  Did  I  hear  somebody  say  '  No '  ?  You 
do  say  '  No, '  do  you?  Well,  then,  tell  me  what  does  become 
of  them?  Let  a  man  spend  his  money  in  luxuries  as  he 
likes;  these  have  to  be  produced;  he  is  a  consumer;  it  may 
be  a  foolish  one,  but  his  money  goes  back  and  forms  a 
part  of  the  entire  wage  fund  of  the  country.  When  you 
say  they  have  not  a  right  to  waste  and  squander  their 
money,  I  think  it  would  be  better  if  they  did  not.  But  just 
remember  how  much  is  spent  in  the  drink  trade  in  this 
country.  Let  us  look  at  ourselves  a  little,  or  I  will  trouble 
you  to  look  at  yourselves  a  little.  £132,000,000  is  the 
amount,  I  think,  that  is  spent  every  year  in  drink.  Of  that 
£80,000,000,  it  is  estimated,  is  spent  by  the  working  classes. 
I  am  not  going  into  the  question  of  drink,  whether  right  or 
wrong,  foolish  or  proper;  I  only  want  to  point  out  that  every 
class,  to  a  very  considerable  extent,  squanders  a  good  deal  of 
its  means.  Gentlemen,  there  is  no  more  incontrovertible  fact 
than  this — that  the  more  capital  there  is  in  the  country  the 
better  it  is  for  the  country  and  the  better  it  is  for  labour.  I 
have  already  pointed  out  that  it  itself  creates  labour  by  those 


LABOUCHERE  AND   SOCIALISM  467 

persons  who  have  capital  consuming  the  capital.  For  in- 
stance, this  £100,000,000  whict  comes  from  foreign  invest- 
ments: would  it  be  of  any  use  that  its  owners  should  fly 
from  this  country  with  their  £100,000,000  per  annum?  It 
is  better  that  they  should  spend  it  here. 

"There  are  other  advantages  connected  with  capital. 
Mr.  Hyndman  has  pointed  to  the  evils  of  competitions. 
Now  I  am  going  to  show  you  that  competition  is  really  to 
the  advantage  of  the  working  man.  You  will  admit  that 
a  certain  amount  of  capital  is  necessary  in  order  to  fructify 
industry.  You  have  to  have  a  factory,  plant,  and  a  wage 
fund.  All  this  requires  capital.  The  cheaper  capital  is 
obtained  the  more  there  remains  for  wage  fund.  On  that 
there  can  be  no  sort  of  difference.  ['  How  is  it  we  never  get 
it?']  Well,  you  are  begging  the  question.  I  am  going  to 
show  you  that  you  do  get  it.  Owing  to  this  country  having 
so  much  increased  in  wealth  the  interest  upon  capital  has 
gone  down.  There  is  perpetual  competition  going  on  among 
capitalists  themselves.  This  is  proved  by  facts.  In  1800 
the  interest  on  money  was  about  five  per  cent. ;  at  the  present 
moment  interest  is  rather  less  than  four  per  cent.  All 
that  is  taken  away  from  capital  most  unquestionably  goes 
to  labour.  It  cannot  go  anywhere  else.  This  is  why  coun- 
tries compete  for  capital.  Look  at  our  colonies  and  foreign 
nations.  Do  not  they  all  compete  for  capital?  Of  course 
they  do.  There  is  a  third  reason:  the  greater  number  of 
rich  you  have  in  a  country,  the  greater  the  amount  of  wool 
which  you  may  shear  for  the  national  expenditure.  Take 
Northampton.  Suppose  twenty  men  came  here,  each  with 
£10,000  per  annum.  You  would  say  it  is  an  uncommonly 
lucky  thing  they  have  come  to  Northampton.  We  '11  levy 
rates  upon  their  houses,  and  they  will  spend  money  here  and 
benefit  the  town.  Suppose  these  men  came  with  £100,000 
and  suppose  they  put  up  some  hosiery  factories.  Surely 
you  admit  that  that  would  be  a  great  advantage  to  the  town 
of  Northampton.  Evidently,  the  greater  the  amount  of 


468  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

capital  attracted  to  any  one  particular  place  the  greater  the 
advantage  to  that  place.  The  idea  of  driving  away  capital  is 
much  like  a  farmer  saying :  I  will  drive  away  my  sheep  because 
these  sheep  eat  grass.  They  do  eat  grass.  But  the  grass  is 
converted  into  mutton.  In  the  same  way  the  money  of  the 
capitalists  is  converted  into  a  labour  fund  for  you.  Well,  gen- 
tlemen, I  say  the  only  way  for  a  country  to  be  prosperous  is  to 
encourage  capital  to  go  there,  and  the  only  way  to  encourage 
capital  to  go  there  is  to  give  some  sort  of  security  to  capital. 

"What  is  the  difference  between  this  country  and  Persia, 
or  any  other  Eastern  country?  In  the  Eastern  country  a 
despot  is  always  laying  hands  on  every  atom  a  man  can 
save.  A  man  therefore  hides  away,  or  runs  away,  from  the 
country  with  his  savings.  The  result  is  that  the  country  is 
poor  and  the  working  men  of  that  country  are  poor.  Now 
take  the  cases  of  China  and  this  country.  In  China  there 
are  400,000,000  inhabitants.  No  doubt  the  Chinese  work 
very  hard.  There  is,  however,  no  capital  there;  there  is  no 
safety  for  capital.  And  the  consequence  is  that  the  Chinese 
labourers  do  not  produce  so  much  as  the  comparatively  few 
million  workers  in  England.  Moreover,  every  fifteen  Chinese 
do  not  get  the  wage  of  one  single  working  man  in  England. 
The  reason  is  that  the  Chinese  are  not  industrially  organised. 
They  have  not  the  advantage  of  capital  to  aid  them  in  pro- 
ducing. Each  works,  so  to  say,  on  his  own  hand,  with  the 
result  that  they  are  far  worse  off  than  the  men  in  the  factory 
which  has  been  brought  into  existence  by  capital. 

"Now,  gentlemen,  I  will  take  a  cotton  factory,  under  the 
present  system.  It  has  to  be  built  and  equipped.  That 
requires  capital.  There  is  capital  required  for  the  wage  fund, 
that  is  to  say,  to  pay  wages  to  the  men  during  the  year, 
because  of  course  the  money  does  not  come  in  until  the  end 
of  the  year,  and  then  capital  is  required  to  buy  the  raw 
material.  Mr.  McCulloch  says  that  for  every  adult  thou- 
sand men  employed  in  such  a  factory  £100,000  is  required 
for  fixed  capital,  £60,000  is  required  for  a  wage  fund,  and 


LABOUCHERE   AND   SOCIALISM  469 

£200,000  is  required  for  the  purchase  of  raw  material.  The 
total  is  £360,000.  Now,  gentlemen,  the  first  charge  is 
obviously  interest  on  capital.  You  must  get  the  capital 
in  some  way.  Assume  that  you  borrow  it.  You  get  interest 
on  capital.  Another  charge  is  the  raw  material.  Raw 
material  you  cannot  alter  because  the  cotton  comes  from 
abroad.  All  you  can  do  in  order  to  increase  the  amount  go- 
ing to  the  wage  fund  is  to  reduce  the  amount  that  goes  as 
interest  on  capital,  and  that  which  is  called  profit  to  the 
undertaker  of  the  concern.  Now  what  is  the  profit  in  the 
whole  of  the  textile  trade?  The  profit  and  the  interest  on 
capital  do  not  amount  to  more  than  four  per  cent.  A  por- 
tion of  that  goes  to  the  capitalist  and  the  remainder  for  the 
organising  skill  and  intelligence  of  the  man  who  brings  the 
\ whole  thing  together  and  works  it.  Well,  you  surely  will 
not  tell  me  that  that  is  excessive.  It  is  rather  too  little. 
For  my  part  I  have  often  wondered  why  in  the  world  a  man 
takes  the  risks  of  trade  instead  of  investing  his  money  in 
something  that  brings  him  in  four  per  cent.  Mr.  Hyndman 
talked  of  the  gambling  interests  of  the  capitalists.  Why,  that 
is  all  for  your  benefit.  Each  capitalist,  call  him  a  gambler 
or  a  vain  man,  thinks  himself  cleverer  than  other  people  and 
says,  I  am  going  to  make  a  fortune.  One  does  make  twenty 
per  cent.,  and  the  other  gets  ruined.  But  if  you  take  the 
whole  body  of  capitalists  their  profits  come  out  at  four  per 
cent.  If  it  were  not  for  the  gambling  chance,  or  the  ability 
shown  by  some  undertaken  in  making  this  four  per  cent., 
you  would  not  get  money  at  so  low  a  rate  of  interest  as  now, 
nor  would  you  get  a  body  of  skilled  organisers  ready  to  take 
so  little  as  they  do  take  at  the  present  moment  for  their 
ability  and  work.  Now,  Mr.  Hyndman  will,  I  think,  admit 
with  me  that  the  thousand  men  would  not  produce  so  much 
were  it  not  for  the  organising  powers  of  some  man,  and  also 
for  the  capital  employed.  We  know  they  would  not.  Each 
man  without  the  aid  of  capital  would  make  so  much  a  day. 
With  the  organisation  and  with  the  capital  employed  in  the 


470  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

business  he  makes  a  great  deal  more,  so  that  he  really 
benefits — he  gets  more  than  he  would  from  his  own  particular 
separate  work.  He  gets  more  that  is  from  his  collective 
work  by  this  application  of  capital  and  organisation  than  he 
would  be  logically  entitled  to  were  he  to  work  without  the 
aid  of  capital  and  machinery. 

"Now  I  am  going  to  show  you  by  a  few  figures  what  bene- 
fit capital  has  been  to  the  working  man.  Here,  again,  you 
have  a  great  difficulty  with  the  figures.  They  are  calculated 
out  by  various  men,  but  I  think  this  conclusion  is  generally 
accepted.  In  1800  all  that  was  earned,  obtained,  secured 
in  wages  to  working  men  was  seventy  millions  sterling.  In 
1 860  this  had  increased  to  400  millions.  In  1 860  the  numbers 
engaged  in  manual  labour  were  double  those  engaged  in  1800, 
so  you  must  make  a  deduction  for  that.  It  would  then 
stand  thus,  that  whereas  a  man  got  seventy  pence,  shillings, 
or  pounds  for  his  work  in  1800,  in  1860  by  the  co-operation 
of  capital  he  received  200.  But  it  is  even  more  at  the  present 
time,  for  he  now  receives  600  millions.  There  is  a  dispute  as 
to  whether  it  is  500  millions  or  600  millions.  Mr.  Giffen 
says  it  is  600,  Mr.  Leone  Levi  says  it  is  531.  Mr.  Hyndman 
says  it  is  300.  Well,  anyhow,  that  is  two  to  one.  I  stand 
by  Mr.  Giffen  and  Mr.  Leone  Levi  and  take  the  figure  as 
at  53 1 .  But  here  again  is  another  way  of  putting  it.  In  the 
first  year  of  the  present  reign,  the  gross  income  of  the  country 
was  515  millions.  Of  this  235  millions  went  to  labour. 
Labour  at  the  present  time  gets  531  millions  according  to 
the  lower  estimate  of  Professor  Leone  Levi,  consequently 
labour  now  gets  more  than  the  income  of  the  entire  country 
at  the  commencement  of  the  present  reign. 

"  Gentlemen,  there  can  be  no  more  erroneous  idea  than  to 
suppose,  as  Mr.  Hyndman  apparently  (as  I  gathered  from 
him)  laid  down,  that  the  lot  of  the  working  man  is  not  bet- 
tered by  machinery,  or  that  machinery  by  doing  part  of  the 
work  now  done  by  working  men  either  increases  the  number 
of  hours  or  reduces  the  wages  of  labour.  My  contention  is 


LABOUCHERE  AND   SOCIALISM  471 

that  it  reduces  the  number  of  hours  and  increases  the  wage 
of  the  individual.  Listen  to  this:  Machinery,  of  course,  is 
revolutionising  the  labour  market;  but  it  is  not  found  that 
machinery,  while  it  displaces  labour,  though  opening  up  new 
channels  for  the  displaced  workers,  either  increases  the  hours 
of  labour  or  decreases  the  remuneration.  Before  the  Sweat- 
ing Committee  it  was  stated  that  the  wages  of  nailmakers  in 
this  country  was  I2s.  a  week  on  the  average.  The  American 
nailer  earns  £6  a  week;  yet  American  nails  are  only  half 
the  price  of  English.  The  explanation  is  that,  owing  to 
excellent  machinery  and  efficient  labour,  maintained  by  high 
wages  and  short  hours,  the  American  produces  2%  tons  of 
nails  while  the  English  man  or  woman  is  making  two  cwt. 
You  say  'Shame!'  I  say,  'Why  don't  you  do  it?'  Why 
don't  you  follow  the  example  of  the  Americans? 

"Take  again  the  illustration  of  a  Waterbury  watch.  So 
exact  is  the  machinery  which  cuts  the  different  parts  of  this 
watch  that  an  assistant  will  put  one  of  these  instruments 
together  in  a  few  minutes  by  selecting  at  random  a  piece 
from  as  many  heaps  as  there  are  parts  in  the  watch.  Yet 
the  workmen  earn  455.  a  week,  and  the  watches  can  be  sold 
cheaper  than  those  made  by  workmen  earning  8s.  or  95.  a 
week  in  the  Black  Forest.  How  is  this?  Because  by  the 
aid  of  his  improved  machinery  the  American  completes  150 
watches  in  the  same  time  as  the  European  is  painfully 
manufacturing  forty.  You  will  say  that  some  capitalist 
wrote  that;  some  man  who  was  unfit  to  judge  the  matter. 
I  will  tell  you  who  the  capitalist  was.  I  got  it  out  of  Rey- 
nolds's  newspaper  last  Saturday.  As  I  pointed  out,  in  the 
factory  you  have  these  diverse  charges — the  charge  for 
interest,  the  charge  for  ability  in  organising,  and  the  charge 
for  the  wage  of  the  worker.  The  business,  I  hold,  of  the 
wage  worker  is  to  see  that  he  gets  a  fair  wage;  and  it  is  be- 
cause the  only  way  to  do  this  is  to  combine  in  trade  unions 
that  I  am  one  of  the  strongest  advocates  of  trade  unionism 
in  the  whole  country.  Then  take  distribution.  I  leave 


472  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

out  the  carriage  and  sale  of  the  various  articles  in  the  shops. 
Here  again  competition  reduces  prices.  You  know  that  as 
well  as  I  do.  You  know  perfectly  well  that  you  see  stuck 
up  in  some  shops:  'Come  and  buy  here;  things  are  half  a 
farthing  less  than  anywhere  else.'  Shopkeepers  compete 
against  each  other.  And  there  you  have  just  the  same  reason 
as  in  the  case  of  factories  why  men  go  into  the  business  of 
shopkeeping,  because  each  man  thinks  he  is  cleverer  than  his 
neighbour ;  each  one  believes  he  is  going  to  make  his  fortune 
and  his  neighbour  is  not.  But  labour  benefits  by  this  be- 
cause the  lower  the  price  of  the  article  the  greater  the  demand 
for  it.  I  say  that,  taking  the  whole  shopkeepers  of  this 
country,  taking  their  labour,  taking  the  amount  of  capital 
they  put  into  their  different  shops,  it  is  impossible  to  say 
that  they  get  an  excessive  profit  from  their  trade. 

"Now,  of  late  there  has  been  a  good  deal  of  discussion  in 
regard  to  co-operation.  I  observe  that  Mr.  Hyndman  did 
not  allude  to  co-operation.  But  co-operation  exists  at 
present,  both  in  regard  to  production  and  in  regard  to 
distribution.  In  order  to  carry  out  co-operation  on  the  very 
largest  scale  it  would  not  be  necessary  to  alter  the  whole  basis 
of  society.  Under  the  present  despised  system  any  working- 
men  may  co-operate  with  each  other,  may  be  their  own 
employers,  and  in  that  way  get  every  farthing  that  is  derived 
from  their  employment.  Statistics  show  that  co-operation, 
just  like  other  things,  sometimes  pays  and  sometimes  does 
not  pay.  In  Lancashire,  in  Yorkshire  and  in  the  north  of 
England  there  is  a  great  deal  of  co-operation  both  in  regard 
to  production  and  in  regard  to  distribution.  The  latest  re- 
turns show  that  about  $15,000,000  is  employed  in  this  work. 
As  I  have  said,  in  some  cases  they  pay  and  in  some  cases  they 
do  not  pay.  I  have  observed  some  curious  things  in  connec- 
tion with  this.  You  would  say  that  at  a  co-operative  store 
you  would  get  an  article  cheaper  than  at  a  shop,  whereas,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  you  do  not  get  an  article  cheaper.  It  is  a 
curious  thing  that  you  don't,  and  the  reason  is  this.  The 


LABOUCHERE  AND   SOCIALISM  473 

co-operators  get  together  in  shares  a  certain  capital  which 
has  to  pay  four  or  five  per  cent.  Then  each  member  gets 
a  pro  rata  return  at  the  end  of  the  year,  a  percentage  upon 
the  amount  he  has  paid  in  the  store  in  connection  with  his 
own  particular  trading.  That  is  perfectly  fair.  Well,  so 
eager  are  they  to  get  the  return  that  they  put  up  the  price 
of  the  goods  against  themselves.  You  must  remember  that 
while  I  advocate  co-operation,  or  while  I  say  that  co-opera- 
tion needs  no  Socialism  to  enable  working-men  to  get  every 
farthing  from  the  process  of  production  and  distribution, 
I  do  not  believe  that  co-operation  in  distribution  is  not  with- 
out certain  evils.  Why  is  it  that  shops  still  hold  their  own, 
and  I  believe  always  will  hold  their  own?  By  competition 
in  the  first  place  prices  in  the  shops  are  reduced  to  as  little 
as  or  less  than  the  prices  in  the  stores.  Again,  if  a  man  wants 
a  red  herring  he  don't  walk  to  the  middle  of  the  town,  near 
where  the  stores  have  to  be,  but  prefers  going  to  a  neigh- 
bouring shop  and  buying  it  there.  Moreover,  we  know  that 
a  great  many  men  have  spent  their  wages  before  the  end  of 
the  week,  and  they  want  a  little  credit.  You  may  depend, 
upon  taking  all  things  into  consideration,  that  no  very  great 
benefit  is  to  be  got  out  of  co-operative  distribution.  I 
merely  went  into  this  question  of  co-operation,  not  to  dis- 
cuss so  much  the  advantages  or  disadvantages  of  co-opera- 
tion, as  to  point  out  to  you  that  co-operation  can  exist,  may 
exist,  and  does  exist  among  working  men,  whenever  they 
like  it,  under  the  present  system. 

"  Now  I  come  to  Mr.  Hyndman's  plan.  I  have  said  a  few 
words  in  favour  of  the  present  system.  I  have  tried  to 
explain  what  that  present  system  is,  and  how,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  labour  does  benefit  by  the  existence  of  capital  and 
capitalist.  Mr.  Hyndman's  plan,  I  take  it,  is  based  upon 
the  notion  that  labour  does  not  get  its  full  share;  that  it 
only  gets  one-third.  ['It  ought  to  get  the  lot.']  Very 
well,  I  have  often  in  the  course  of  my  life  thought  I  ought  to 
get  the  lot,  but  I  have  never  got  it,  I  can  tell  you.  Mr. 


474  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

Hyndman's  idea  is  that  if  the  State  took  upon  itself  the 
functions  performed  by  private  capitalists  everybody  would 
be  fully  employed  and  properly  paid.  Could  this  desir- 
able result  be  brought  about?  That  is  the  real  thing.  If, 
at  once,  under  Mr.  Hyndman's  guidance  we  could  enter  upon 
the  millennium  we  should  all  be  for  entering.  But  the 
question  is  whether  we  should  enter  it  by  this  gate  or  whether 
we  should  get  somewhere  else. 

"I  have  got  here  the  programme  of  the  Social-Democratic 
Federation.  I  have  extracted  it  from  Justice.  It  is  all 
right.  Mr.  Hyndman  pointed  out  that  a  great  many  things 
in  the  programme  were  merely  doctrines  which  had  been 
put  forward  by  the  Socialists,  and  had  now  been  adopted  by 
the  Radicals.  I  should  say  that  there  was  a  great  deal  in  it 
that  was  put  forward  by  the  Radicals  and  had  always  been 
advocated  by  the  Radicals ;  and  we  are  exceedingly  glad  that 
the  Socialists  agree  with  us  so  far.  Now  I  like  this  pro- 
gramme. What  has  been  my  trouble  in  talking  with  some 
Socialists  is  that  they  never  have  the  courage  of  their  own 
opinions.  What  are  you  hissing  for?  I  am  going  to  praise 
you.  As  members  of  the  Social-Democratic  Federation 
you  are  surely  not  going  to  take  under  your  wing  every 
Socialist  in  the  world.  I  have  often  had  discussions  with 
Socialists,  and  I  have  found  that  they  leave  out  certain  por- 
tions of  their  programme.  I  have  said  to  them:  That  is  a 
necessary  plank  in  your  programme;  knock  out  any  of 
these  stones  and  you  knock  down  the  arch.  You  have  done 
nothing  of  the  kind.  You  have  fairly  and  squarely  put  this 
as  the  Social  Revolution  in  all  its  details.  You  see  I  am  not 
complaining  of  you,  so  don't  cry  out  again  before  you  are 
hurt.  Now,  Number  7  says:  'The  means  of  production,  dis- 
tribution, and  exchange  to  be  declared  as  collective  or 
common  property.'  Now,  what  does  this  mean?  That 
all  manufacturing,  all  shopkeeping,  all  shipping,  all  the 
agricultural  industry,  and  all  banking  ought  to  be  done  by 
the  State " 


LABOUCHERE  AND   SOCIALISM  475 

Mr.  Hyndman:  "Community." 

Mr.  Labouchere:  "Or  community.  Every  man,  as  I 
understand  it,  is  to  do  his  bit  of  work,  every  man  is  to  have 
his  share  of  the  profit  of  the  business.  Have  you  ever 
thought  what  amount  of  capital  this  would  require?  The 
building  of  factories  would  require  1000  million  pounds 
for  ten  million  workers.  The  wage  fund  would  be  600 
millions;  the  raw  material  would  be  200  millions;  the  ship- 
ping, say  about  500  millions.  I  am  trying  to  underestimate 
the  amount.  As  to  the  shops,  I  suppose,  if  you  took  all 
there  are  in  the  whole  country,  they  would  cost  about  100 
millions.  Then  the  agricultural  buildings  and  machinery, 
excluding  the  land  itself,  would  be,  say,  500  millions.  This 
would  be  very  much  under  a  proper  estimate,  but  still  the 
whole  amount  runs  up  to  something  like  3000  millions.  Are 
all  the  factories  to  be  seized?  My  friend  says  '  Yes. '  That 
will  knock  off  1000  millions  at  once.  Are  all  the  shops  to  be 
seized?  ['Yes,  yes.']  This  will  knock  off  100  millions 
for  the  shops.  Still,  if  you  do  this,  you  won't  certainly 
have  done.  Obviously  you  have  to  buy  the  raw  material, 
you  have  to  have  a  wage  fund,  and  a  good  deal  to  keep  the 
machinery  in  order  even  when  you  have  laid  hands  on  it  in 
the  expeditious  way  your  friend  proposes.  That  would  be 
2000  millions.  How  are  you  going  to  get  it?  You  would 
borrow  it.  Would  you  borrow  it?  Let  us  suppose  you 
borrow  it.  To  borrow  it  you  have  to  get  somebody  to  lend 
it  to  you.  I  have  known  a  great  many  persons  ready  to  bor- 
row more  than  people  are  ready  to  lend.  Another  item, 
which  I  am  bound  to  say  is  not  in  the  Radical  programme  of 
the  Social- Democratic  Federation,  is  the  repudiation  of  the 
National  Debt.  Now,  sure,  if  you  repudiate  the  National 
Debt  you  would  find  a  difficulty  in  getting  anybody  to 
lend  you  the  money  you  want.  Where  are  you  going  to 
get  it?  Are  you  going  to  levy  it  upon  property?  What 
property  are  you  going  to  levy  it  upon  ?  We  '11  allow  that  the 
land  and  factories  are  to  be  seized.  If  they  are  not  to  be 


476  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

seized  they  are  to  be  ruined ;  they  are  to  be  left  high  and  dry. 
No  individual  man  is  to  work  in  them.  You  would  have 
a  certain  amount  of  portable  property  like  the  money  that 
comes  in  from  foreign  investments,  but  its  owners  would  not 
wait  to  have  it  taken.  They  would  immediately  clear  out 
of  the  country." 

Mr.  Hyndman:  "Hear,  hear." 

Mr.  Labouchere:  "I  am  going  from  surprise  to  surprise. 
I  really  do  believe  that  Mr.  Hyndman  wishes  that  the  men 
with  the  100  millions  should  clear  out  of  the  country. 
These  100  millions  are  derived  from  investments  made 
abroad.  The  investments  are  already  made,  and  the 
money  may  be  paid  here  or  abroad  just  as  its  owners  please. 
Therefore  you  would  absolutely  have  no  control  over  it. 
Its  owners  could  walk  off  to  America  or  France  to-morrow, 
or  to  one  of  our  colonies,  where  they  would  be  welcomed  with 
pleasure  and  where  they  would  be  able  to  live  with  their 
loo  millions  and  spend  it  just  as  they  liked.  The  only 
difference  would  be  that  they  would  not  be  consumers 
here,  they  would  not  compete  with  their  capital  to  reduce 
the  interest  on  the  capital  necessary  to  run  the  whole  business 
of  the  country.  I  am  very  curious  to  know,  I  cannot  quite 
make  out,  whether  a  man  may  save  or  not.  It  is  not  clear. 
I  see  one  of  the  articles  is,  '  the  production  and  distribution 
of  wealth  is  to  be  regulated  by  society. '  That  leads  me  to 
suppose  he  may  not  save.  I  should  say  myself  that  if  you 
are  going  to  carry  out  this  millennium  you  could  only  do  it 
by  preventing  any  sort  of  saving:  because  if  savings  take 
place  you  will  have  some  men  rich  and  some  poor,  evidently. 
But  how  about  the  professions?  What  are  they  to  be  done 
with?  Are  professional  men  not  to  be  allowed  to  make  any 
savings?  I  see  all  justice  is  to  be  free.  Well,  that  would 
create  a  good  deal  of  litigation;  but  I  personally  suffer  a 
good  deal  from  justice,  so  that  I  don't  know  that  I  should 
particularly  object  to  that  item.  You  would  have,  I  pre- 
sume, these  professions !  You  would  have  doctors  and  men 


LABOUCHERE  AND   SOCIALISM  477 

engaged  in  art  and  so  forth?  They  would  be  able  to  sell 
their  productions  abroad,  their  skill  abroad.  Consequently 
how  would  you  regulate  their  fortunes?  How  are  you  going 
to  regulate  the  distribution  of  wealth  in  regard  to  these  men? 
I  say  the  thing  is  absolutely  and  utterly  impracticable. 
You  could  not.  Yet,  gentlemen,  it  seems  there  is  some  idea 
of  saving,  for  I  see  this  in  another  article :  '  The  extension  of 
the  Post  Office  Savings  Bank  which  will  absorb  all  private 
institutions  that  draw  profit  from  money  or  credit!'  Well, 
but  who  would  put  into  the  Post  Office?  The  Post  Office, 
if  they  did  put  it  in,  would  have  to  incur  all  the  risks  of  the 
great  business.  But  I  told  you  that  the  National  Debt  was 
to  be  repudiated.  What  is  the  fact?  That  the  Post  Office 
Savings  Bank  has  invested  £5,599,000  of  public  savings,  of 
labour  mainly,  in  consols.  If,  consequently,  you  were  to 
do  away  with  the  National  Debt  one  of  the  things  you  would 
do  would  be  to  repudiate  five  millions  sterling  saved  by 
labour.  Now,  I  think  it  was  some  gentleman  who  was  dis- 
cussing the  matter  with  me  in  the  Reporter  who  said  that  you 
might  save,  but  no  man  would  be  allowed  to  employ  any 
savings  by  making  another  man  work  for  him.  Allow  me  to 
point  out  to  you  that  indirectly  one  man  must  work  for 
another  if  he  does  not  work  for  himself.  Is  he  going,  like  that 
wicked  man  in  the  Bible,  to  hide  his  talent  in  a  napkin? 
Not  a  bit.  I  suppose  he  will  make  a  little  interest  on  it. 
He  won't  work  for  the  interest  himself,  so  somebody  else 
will.  If  you  are  going  to  try  to  distribute  wealth  you  will 
have  continual  disputes,  for  I  deny  that,  so  long  as  human 
nature  is  what  it  is,  so  long  as  a  man  wants  to  lay  by  some- 
thing for  his  children,  you  will  be  able  to  prevent  savings. 
The  only  thing  you  would  be  able  to  do  would  be  to  frighten 
savings  away  from  this  country,  and  cause  them  to  be  taken 
to  some  other  country,  which  would  compete  against  you. 
"Let  us  suppose  now  that  this  initial  difficulty  of  ob- 
taining the  money  is  got  over.  Then  there  comes  the  or- 
ganisation. Well,  who  would  organise?  Who  would  be 


478  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

superintendents,  and  who  would  be  workers?  Who  would 
engage  in  the  complicated  business  of  exchange  with  foreign 
countries?  Remember,  all  skilled  talent  would  disappear. 
You  say  '  Ha,  ha ! '  Do  you  really  think  that  a  man  who 
perhaps  is  a  skilled  organiser  of  labour,  who  could  earn  a 
thousand  or  two  thousand  a  year  abroad  or  in  the  colonies, 
would  stay  here  and  receive  an  exceedingly  small  sum,  simply 
because  he  was  an  Englishman?  Of  course  he  would  go 
away.  I  say  you  would  deprive  the  country  of  its  most 
intelligent  organisers. 

"There  is  another  difficulty.  Who  would  settle  the 
employment  to  be  secured  for  each  person?  Here  is  a 
shepherd.  He  would  say:  'I  want  to  be  a  shoemaker.' 
'My  good  friend,'  they  would  say,  'we  don't  want  you;  go 
and  be  a  shepherd. '  They  'd  say  to  me :  '  We  Ve  got  quite 
enough  newspapers  without  yours.  We  want  a  good  chim- 
ney sweep.  Be  that.  Go  to  Newcastle. '  They  'd  say  to 
our  friend,  Mr.  Hyndman :  '  We  '11  find  employment  for  you 
in  hay-making  in  Somersetshire.'  Mr.  Hyndman  may  say 
he  likes  that  paternal  arrangement;  he  likes  hay-making. 
I  '11  tell  you  one  thing:  I  would  n't  go  and  sweep  chimneys 
in  Newcastle.  But  you  say  that  the  State  carries  on  the  Post 
Office,  the  Army,  and  the  Navy,  among  other  things;  and 
I  say  it  carries  them  on  exceedingly  badly  too.  You  will 
find,  taking  ship  for  ship,  that  ships  can  be  built  in  a  private 
yard  much  cheaper  than  in  a  public  yard.  As  for  the  Post 
Office,  I  agree  with  Mr.  Hyndman  in  saying  I  do  not  know 
any  public  Department  so  badly  managed  as  the  Post  Office. 
There  is  an  enormous  deal  of  sweating ;  the  big  men  get  too 
big  salaries,  and  the  little  men  do  not  get  enough.  If  the 
Army,  Navy,  and  Post  Office  be  an  exemplication  of  what 
would  be  done  under  the  paternal  arrangement,  Heaven 
help  us! 

"But,  gentlemen,  what  really  surpasses  my  understand- 
ing is  this,  how  in  the  world,  if  Mr.  Hyndman's  system  were 
adopted,  any  regular  work,  or  shorter  hours,  or  better  pay, 


LABOUCHERE   AND   SOCIALISM  479 

or  employment  of  all  would  be  more  easily  obtained  than 
under  the  present  system.  I  say  your  capital,  if  you  did  get 
it,  would  be  at  a  higher  cost.  I  say  that  profit,  if  you  take 
profit,  is  almost  reduced  by  competition  to  a  minimum. 
You  would  not  make  one  shilling  by  the  transaction.  Supply, 
surely,  would  depend  upon  demand.  You  could  not  alter 
that.  Take  the  foreign  trade.  You  would  not  increase  your 
foreign  trade,  under  this  system.  You  would  still  have  to 
compete  with  foreign  countries  in  China  and  elsewhere. 
Foreign  consumers  would  take  goods  from  those  from  whom 
they  could  buy  them  cheapest.  The  Socialists  have  per- 
ceived this,  and  they  have  invented  the  idea  of  establishing 
on  the  land  an  enormous  number  of  labourers,  who  are  to  act 
as  consumers,  and  consequently  take  all  the  home  surplus 
products.  And  I  see  here  it  is  proposed  that  the  Municipal 
or  State  army  of  labourers  should  be  organised  as  on  the  great 
farms  in  America.  Mr.  Hyndman  alluded  to  what  they  did 
on  these  bonanza  farms.  They  send  men  down  to  them  twice 
a  year,  once  to  sow  and  once  to  reap.  You  might  find  if  you 
had  the  proposed  armies  that  the  product  might  be  increased, 
but  the  number  of  persons  employed  on  the  land,  that  is  to 
say,  the  consumers  on  the  land,  would  be  reduced.  That  is 
why  I  have  been  in  favour  of  small  holdings. 

"As  to  the  numbers  of  the  agricultural  labourers,  those 
labourers  won  us  the  election  last  time,  remember.  What 
are  you  hissing  at?  Did  you  want  the  Conservatives  to  win ? 
You  must  take  people  as  they  are.  These  agricultural 
labourers  may  be  wrong,  but  their  strongest  desire  is  to 
become  possessors  of  small  holdings.  That  has  been  the 
aim  and  object  of  the  Parish  Councils  Bill,  which  will  slowly 
and  quietly  nationalise  the  land  by  throwing  the  property, 
little  by  little,  and  very  quickly  I  think,  into  the  hands  of  the 
Parish  Councils,  who  will  let  it  to  the  villagers.  You  will 
then  get  a  large  number  of  agriculturalists  on  the  land,  far 
greater  than  now,  consuming  your  products.  At  the  same 
time  you  would  avoid  their  coming  into  the  towns  and  com- 


480  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

peting  with  you  for  labour.  The  subject  is  a  very  lengthy 
one.  As  I  said,  you  have  to  go  into  the  question  in  all  its 
absolute  details.  I  will  only  tell  you  one  other  reason  why 
I  object  to  this  system  of  making  us  all  children  in  the  hands 
of  the  State.  I  say  it  would  be  the  greatest  danger  to  our 
liberties.  Why  is  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  the  master  race  in 
the  world?  Why  has  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  maintained  its 
liberties?  It  is  because  of  that  individualism,  that  self- 
reliance,  which  exists  in  this  country.  I  would  trust  no  body 
of  men,  not  Mr.  Hyndman  and  the  leaders  of  the  Social- 
Democratic  Federation — though  I  make  no  implication 
against  them — nor  even  a  body  of  angels,  with  the  power  of 
destroying  and  ruining,  at  one  fell  blow,  the  entire  nation. 
This  unquestionably  would  be  the  case,  and  who  would  be 
able  to  resist  it?  You  would  have  some  strong  and  powerful 
man  coming  forward,  supported  by  all  the  discontented,  all 
the  men  who  were  not  prepared  to  accept  this  wondrous 
dispensation,  this  dead  level  of  equality.  I  say  you  would 
have  such  a  man ;  I  say  the  risk  is  too  great.  Mr.  Hyndman 
has  alluded  to  France.  What  did  one  great  Frenchman, 
M.  Guizot,  say?  He  said:  'The  evil  of  France  is  that  a 
Frenchman  must  either  be  administered  or  an  adminis- 
trator.' What  is  the  consequence  of  that  feeling?  They 
have  no  self-reliance.  Every  now  and  then  they  have  a 
Republic,  and  then  comes  one  like  Napoleon,  who  overturns 
their  Republic  and  seizes  upon  the  whole  thing. 

"I  have  almost  finished  now.  I  infinitely  prefer  listening 
to  Mr.  Hyndman  to  speaking  myself,  but  I  had  to  make  some 
defence  of  the  cause  by  which  I  stand.  I  do  say  that  the 
Radical  Party  as  at  present  constituted,  the  modern  Radical 
Party,  has  adopted  every  reasonable  idea  of  Socialism.  And 
the  future  of  this  country  depends  upon  Socialism  being 
recognised  within  proper  limits — Collectivism  I  would  prefer 
to  call  it — individualism  being  recognised,  trade  unionism 
being  recognised,  co-operation  being  recognised.  We  must 
all  give  up  our  little  separate  fads  and  all  work  together  in 


LABOUCHERE  AND   SOCIALISM  481 

the  cause  of  Democracy,  the  rule,  the  absolute  rule,  of  the 
people,  ruling  for  the  benefit  of  the  people. " 

Mr.  Hyndman  said  in  reply : 

"There  are  just  one  or  two  points  I  should  like  to  deal 
with  in  reply  to  Mr.  Labouchere.  To  begin  with  I  have 
listened  with  the  greatest  surprise  to-night  to  his  constant 
reference  to  the  wage  fund.  Without  any  disrespect  to  him 
I  say  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  figment  has  been  aban- 
doned by  every  political  economist  of  any  note  for  the  last 
thirty  years.  It  was  abandoned  by  Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill, 
in  deference  to  the  criticism  of  Long  and  Cairnes  twenty- 
five  years  ago.  The  bottom  was  knocked  out  of  it  by 
Marx  forty  years  ago.  What  is  the  wage  fund,  my  friends? 
The  wage  fund  is  provided  by  the  labourer  himself,  who, 
mark  you,  advances  his  labour  to  the  capitalist  before  he 
gets  a  farthing  of  wages.  There  is  not  a  man  in  this  hall, 
however  big  an  Individualist  or  Radical  he  may  be,  not  a 
single  working  man  here  who  goes  to  work  from  week  end  to 
week  end  that  does  not  advance  a  week's  labour  to  the 
capitalist  before  he  gets  a  sixpence  in  return.  The  fact  of 
the  matter  is  that  the  capitalist  has  got  in  his  possession  the 
value,  and  more  than  the  value,  far  more  than  the  value  paid 
as  wages  before  he  pays  a  sixpence  of  those  wages.  He  can 
go  to  his  banker  with  the  product  he  has  got  out  of  the 
labourer  and  get  an  advance  before  he  pays  those  wages. 
Practically  in  getting  the  advance  he  realises  the  product  of 
his  employees'  labour.  The  fallacy  of  the  wage  fund  theory 
is  recognised  by  every  economist,  and  I  defy  Mr.  Labouchere 
to  prove  I  am  wrong.  I  will  defy  Mr.  Labouchere  to  name 
an  economist  who  upholds  it." 

At  this  point  of  Mr.  Hyndman's  speech  Mr.  Labouchere 
rose  and  said : 

"  I  deny  that  there  is  one  single  economist  of  repute  who 

questions  the  effect  of  what  I  said  about  the  wage  fund.     The 

employer  has  either  to  provide  himself  with  a  wage  fund,  and 

then  he  is  entitled  to  interest  on  his  money,  or  he  has  to 

31 


482  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

borrow  it  from  someone  else,  and  then  he  has  to  pay  interest. 
The  working-man,  it  is  perfectly  true,  gives  him  credit  for  a 
week — not  always,  but  I  am  taking  Mr.  Hyndman's  state- 
ment— but  the  employer  does  not,  I  say — take  the  cotton 
industry — the  employer  does  not  get  back  his  money  till  the 
end  of  the  year.  Consequently,  whereas  the  working  man 
gives  credit  for  a  week,  the  employer  has  to  give  him  credit 
for  fifty-one  weeks.  ['No,  no.']  I  say  yes,  there  is  no 
question  about  it.  All  that  I  want  to  point  out  is  that  you 
have  to  pay  interest  on  this  wage  fund.  Mr.  Hyndman 
admits  it,  because  he  says,  what  does  he  do?  He  goes  and 
obtains  it  from  his  banker.  Does  his  banker  give  it  to  him  ? ' ' 
To  which  Mr.  Hyndman  retorted,  not  ineffectually: 
"I  say  that  the  security  has  been  provided  by  the  working 
man  before  the  capitalist  is  able  to  raise  a  sixpence  on  it, 
and  that  all  he  does  is  to  divide  up  the  surplus  value  he  has 
got  from  the  worker  with  the  banker  who  has  made  the 
advance.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  wage  fund,  except  that 
provided  by  the  worker  himself.  And  it  is  exactly  the  same 
with  the  capital.  Friends  and  fellow-citizens,  where  does 
this  capital  come  from?  From  the  labourers  themselves. 
Where  can  the  capital  come  from  if  not  from  the  labour  of 
the  workers?  Did  not  the  workers  build  every  factory  in 
this  country,  from  its  base  to  its  topmost  storey?  Did 
they  not  put  down  every  sleeper  on  the  railways,  and  lay 
down  every  mile  of  line?  I  say,  therefore,  that  this  idea  of 
the  wage  fund,  which  has  been  repudiated  by  John  Stuart 
Mill,  by  Cairnes,  by  Mr.  Alfred  Marshall,  by  every  econo- 
mist of  note,  does  not  exist  in  economy,  but  is  a  figment  of 
the  imagination.  Now,  friends,  as  to  this  question  of 
families  fading  out.  Mr.  Labouchere  says  that  the  death- 
rate  has  lowered.  That  is  perfectly  true.  On  the  average 
the  death-rate  has  lowered.  But  mark  this.  It  has  lowered 
principally  in  the  well-to-do  districts.  The  death-rate  in 
St.  George's,  Hanover  Square,  is  n  per  1000;  in  several 
districts  of  Lambeth  it  is  66." 


LABOUCHERE  AND   SOCIALISM  483 

Mr.  Labouchere,  evidently  astonished,  turned  to  the 
Chairman  and  said,  "Is  that  a  fact?"  Some  one  in  the 
audience  shouted  "Proof!" 

"Proof  you  must  look  up  in  the  statistics;  I  can't  bring 
a  library  here  with  me.  I  say,  friends,  in  addition  to  that, 
that  vitality  is  on  a  lower  plane.  For  this,  again,  I  give  as 
my  authority  passages  quoted  in  Alfred  Marshall's  Principles 
of  Economics,  where  you  will  find  the  opinions  of  doctors. 
I  also  refer  you  to  reports  of  certifying  surgeons  for  the 
factories  for  the  year  1875  and  later  dates.  I  say  that  when 
I  speak  of  families  fading  out,  I  mean  that  the  physical  and 
mental  vigour  and  initiative  of  those  families  are  crushed 
down  in  our  great  cities.  I  have  never  heard  it  disputed 
before;  I  don't  think  I  shall  hear  it  disputed  again.  If  you 
ask  any  of  the  great  contractors  as  to  his  supply  of  powerful 
navvies,  he  will  tell  you  he  cannot  get  them  out  of  the  towns. 
If  you  ask  any  of  the  recruiting  officers  he  will  tell  you  the 
lads  from  the  cities  are  physically  useless.  You  will  find 
the  standard  of  height  for  recruits  has  decreased  five  inches 
during  the  present  reign,  and  the  chest  measurement  in 
proportion.  Consequently  there  is,  I  say,  in  our  great  cities, 
which  form  the  bulk  of  the  population,  a  constant  physical 
deterioration  going  on,  which  will  end  in  the  fading-out  of 
the  people  unless  we  replace  this  system  of  robbery  and 
rascality  and  oppression  that  is  going  on  at  present  by  a 
better.  I  cannot  stop  any  length  of  time  to  dispute  about 
the  way  in  which  the  wealth  that  is  taken  from  the  workers 
is  divided  up.  It  matters  not  to  me  whether  it  is  the  Royal 
Family,  or  the  professional  men,  or  the  servants  who  divide 
it,  or  in  what  proportion  they  divide  it,  after  it  has  been 
taken  from  the  worker.  That  makes,  I  say,  no  difference 
whatsoever.  The  workers  never  see  it  again.  Four  per 
cent,  also  on  £100,000,000  is  forty  per  cent,  on  £10,000,000. 
How  is  the  amount  of  capital  reckoned?  Mr.  Labouchere 
knows  perfectly  well  that  a  coal  mine  or  factory  which  has 
cost  but  £40,000  will  frequently  be  capitalised  at  £200,000. 


484  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

That  is  the  way  they  put  it  in  the  Blue  Books.  I  can  give  an 
example  of  a  mill  in  Rochdale  where  the  freehold  belongs  to 
the  man  who  owns  that  mill,  when  and  where  every  single 
charge  is  met  in  a  separate  category,  and  then,  after  all  these 
are  divided,  the  interest  on  the  capital  is  reckoned  over  again 
on  the  whole  capitalised  value.  I  say  that  four  per  cent. 
does  not  represent  the  profits  on  cotton,  even  in  these  com- 
paratively bad  days  for  the  cotton  industry.  But  the  mere 
fact  that  the  profit  is  going  down  means  that  competition  is 
cutting  its  own  throat,  that  we  are  no  longer  masters  of  the 
markets  of  the  world.  And  what  does  the  capitalist  do  when 
his  profits  go  down?  He  tries  to  make  another  turn  of  the 
screw  on  his  labourers — and  the  result  was  the  great  cotton 
strike  which  occurred  a  short  time  ago,  when,  for  sixteen 
weeks  on  end,  the  poor  unfortunate  spinners  and  weavers 
stood  out  because  they  would  not  have  that  amount  which 
the  capitalist  was  losing  in  the  competitive  market  sweated 
out  of  their  very  bone  and  blood.  So  much  for  your  four 
per  cent,  or  your  forty  per  cent.  It  is  wrung  out  of  the 
workers,  it  can  come  from  nobody  else.  As  to  the  organiser, 
what  did  the  Roman  slave-owner  give  to  his  villeins,  who 
stood  in  the  same  relation  to  the  working  slaves  as  the 
capitalist  organiser  to  the  labouring  classes  to-day?  He 
paid  him  lower  remuneration  because  his  labours  were  less 
exhausting.  That  is  a  positive  fact.  I  say  that  if  you  want 
organisers  who  to-day  are  appointed  by  the  capitalist,  let 
them  be  appointed  by  the  workers,  who  can  pay  them  far 
better  than  the  capitalists,  because  you  will  have  all  the 
capitalists'  profits  and  all  the  amounts  the  capitalists  sweat 
out  of  their  employees'  labour  as  well  to  pay  with.  ['  Don't 
capitalists  start  as  working  men?']  Yes,  and  the  more  they 
grab,  the  bigger  they  get.  As  to  the  amount  received  by 
the  working  men  as  wages,  Mr.  Leone  Levi  was  one  of  the 
most  unscrupulous  and  lying  champions  of  the  capitalist 
class  who  ever  wrote.  He  represented  that  the  average 
wages  of  working  men  and  women  throughout  England 


LABOUCHERE  AND   SOCIALISM  485 

were  325.  a  week.  That  is  a  positive  fact ;  it  is  on  record  in 
his  own  books.  Thirty-two  shillings  a  week!  I  say  that 
is  a  deliberate  lie.  And  that  is  how  he  made  out  his 
amount  of  531  millions.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Mr.  Giffen 
and  Mr.  Mulhall  both  included  in  the  wages  of  the  working 
classes  all  those  paid  to  domestic  servants,  the  soldiers  and 
sailors,  all  that  is  paid  to  your  noble  friends  the  police.  I 
say  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  those  are  not  producers  in  the 
common  sense  of  the  word.  They  are  simply  encumbrances 
upon  the  industrial  community.  I  say,  further,  that  out  of 
the  amount  paid  in  wages  to  the  working  classes,  which  I 
reckon  at  £300,000,000  to  £350,000,000,  not  a  sixpence  more, 
one-fifth  or  one-fourth  has  to  be  paid  as  rent  for  the  miserable 
dwellings  the  workers  occupy.  That  is,  I  say,  the  position  of 
the  labouring  portion  of  the  community  at  the  present  time. 
I  am  told  that  shopkeepers  are  a  useful  class.  Well,  surely 
there  are  too  many  of  them.  You  will  find  in  one  street  half 
a  dozen  people  vending  the  same  wares.  The  organisation 
of  any  decent  system  of  distribution  would  not  allow  such 
a  state  of  things  to  continue,  but  would  turn  the  unnecessary 
distributors  into  producers,  and  thus  lighten  the  weight  of 
producing  on  the  others.  Mr.  Labouchere  does  not  seem 
to  understand  that  what  we  want  is  not  money.  You  cannot 
eat  it;  you  cannot  be  clothed  with  it.  What  you  want  is 
good  hats,  good  homes,  and  good  beefsteaks — enjoyment, 
contentment  in  life,  comfort,  and  beyond  all  these,  public 
amusements  of  every  kind.  I  say  that  these  have  nothing 
whatsoever  to  do  with  money.  If  you  want  to  save,  you 
don't  want  to  save  money;  you  want  to  save  those  things 
which  are  necessary  to  the  support  and  continuance  of  life. 
Mr.  Labouchere  seems  to  think  that  communism  is  unknown 
on  this  planet.  I  say  that  human  beings  far  lower  in  the 
range  of  civilisation  than  we,  with  comparatively  small  and 
puny  means  of  production,  live  far  more  happily,  in  far 
better  conditions  of  life,  than  enormous  proportions  of  our 
great  city  population.  Where?  I  will  tell  you.  I  say  I 


486  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

have  lived  among  communal  tribes  where,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  conditions  are  as  I  have  told  you.  The  inhabitants 
of  Polynesia,  the  Pueblas  of  New  Mexico,  and  the  people  of 
other  places  which  I  have  not  seen,  live  better,  considerably 
better,  with  all  their  small  means  of  production,  than  the 
proletariat  of  our  great  cities,  and  they  produce,  regard  be- 
ing had  to  the  productive  powers  at  their  command,  articles 
of  clothing  and  domestic  use  as  remarkable  in  their  way  as 
the  finest  products  of  civilisation.  More  than  that,  all  the 
great  bed-rock  inventions  of  humanity,  the  wheel,  the 
potter's  wheel,  the  smelting  of  metals,  the  canoe,  the  rudder, 
the  sail,  every  one  of  these  and  many  more,  the  stencil  plate 
and  weaving,  to  wit,  were  invented  under  communism  and 
no  human  being  knows  who  invented  them.  That  is  a 
sufficient  answer  to  the  supposition  that  under  a  Socialist 
state  of  society  there  would  be  no  progress  in  the  invention. 
But  I  am  asked  what  the  capitalists  will  do  when  the  trans- 
formation to  a  co-operative  commonwealth  is  made.  They 
will  go  away  with  their  capital.  What  is  capital?  Capital 
is  the  means  and  instruments  of  production  used  by  a  class 
to  make  profit  out  of  labour.  Can  the  capitalist  roll  up  the 
railways  and  take  them  away  in  his  portmanteau?  Will  he 
walk  away  with  the  factories  in  his  waistcoat  pocket?  Mr. 
Labouchere  himself  sees  the  futility  of  some  of  this.  He 
advocates  the  nationalisation  of  the  railways  because  he 
says  that  they  will  be  better  administered  under  the  State 
than  to-day." 

Mr.  Labouchere:  "No,  no." 

Mr.  Hyndman:  "Why  then  do  you  want  to  nationalise 
them?" 

Mr.  Labouchere:  "  I  very  much  doubt  whether  they  would 
be  better  managed  in  the  sense  that  they  would  produce 
more  money  than  now.  I  hold  that  the  roads  of  a  country 
ought  to  belong  essentially  to  the  State.  It  is  better  for  the 
general  benefit  that  they  should  be  held  collectively.  I  do 
object  to  their  giving  preferential  rates  to  foreigners  and 


LABOUCHERE  AND   SOCIALISM  487 

charging  excessive  amounts  to  persons  sending  goods  a 
short  distance  in  England.  That  is  the  reason  why  I 
think  the  railways  would  be  better  in  the  hands  of  the 
State." 

Mr.  Hyndman:  "As  a  matter  of  fact,  preferential  rates 
can  be  stopped  without  the  nationalisation  of  the  railways. 
Mr.  Labouchere  can  bring  in  a  Bill  when  Parliament  meets 
to  prevent  them.  Why,  then,  is  he  so  Utopian  as  to  demand 
the  nationalisation  of  the  railways?  I  want,  however,  to 
raise  the  discussion  out  of  the  minor  points,  and  I  say  this, 
that  Socialism  does  not  mean  organisation  by  the  State 
under  the  control  of  Mr.  Hyndman,  or  any  one  else,  but  the 
entire  organisation  of  industry,  on  the  highest  plane  of  co- 
operation for  the  benefit  of  all.  In  that  co-operative  com- 
monwealth competition  for  profit  will  be  unknown.  Mr. 
Labouchere  has  drawn  a  tremendous  picture  of  what  it  will 
cost  to  effect  the  change.  What  does  the  social  system  cost 
you  as  it  is  going  on  to-day?  Competition  carried  to  its 
logical  issue  must  engender  monopolies.  These  monopolies 
have  been  given  by  the  capitalist  class  to  themselves  in  their 
capitalist  House  of  Commons.  That  assembly  must  be 
re-constituted  and  turned  to  Social-Democratic  purposes. 
But  then  you  will  lose  all  those  clever  men  who  will  not  join 
with  you!  Where  will  they  go?  We  are  stronger  in  France 
than  in  England,  and  stronger  in  Germany  than  in  France. 
Will  they  go  to  China?  That  seems  to  me  the  last  refuge 
of  the  wandering  individualist,  the  last  place  on  the  planet 
where  the  individualist  will  be  able  to  go.  Socialism  is 
gaining  ground  in  every  country  in  the  world,  and  mark  this, 
where  the  people  are  best  educated,  there  we  are  most 
powerful.  Germany  is  the  best  educated  country,  and 
Socialism  is  stronger  there  than  in  any  other  nation.  What- 
ever city  in  England  has  a  body  of  educated  workers,  there 
we  make  way  quickly.  Mr.  Labouchere  seems  to  think  that 
no  one  will  serve  his  fellowmen  unless  he  is  able  to  grab  from 
them.  His  idea  of  humanity  seems  to  me — I  wish  to  say 


488  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

nothing  that  is  in  the  least  offensive,  and  I  will  withdraw  it 
at  once  if  it  is  considered  so. " 

For  about  a  minute  there  was  disorder  so  great  that  Mr. 
Hyndman  was  unable  to  proceed.  The  Chairman  rose  and 
appealed  for  quietness  during  the  two  or  three  minutes  that 
remained  to  Mr.  Hyndman.  Silence  having  been  restored, 
Mr.  Hyndman  said: 

"I  say,  friends,  that  the  representation  that  the  men  of 
intelligence,  of  genius,  of  capacity,  and  the  like  would  leave 
us  and  go  to  other  places  means  that  they  are  not  animated 
by  the  idea  of  serving  their  species,  but  simply  of  making 
their  own  fortunes.  I  say  that  mankind,  as  a  whole,  has 
higher  ideals  than  that.  I  say  that  all  the  great  work  done 
on  this  planet,  all  the  great  books  that  have  ever  been 
written,  all  the  great  inventions  that  have  ever  been  made, 
have  not  been  made  for  money,  but  for  something  higher 
than  that.  I  say  further,  that  when  a  man  has  been  paid 
all  he  requires  to  sustain  a  happy,  contented,  and.  wholesome 
life,  when  he  has  around  him  a  people  living  happily  with 
him,  co-operating  with  him,  when  he  sees  that  every  effort 
he  makes  tends  to  the  advantage  of  the  whole  community 
and  to  the  drawback  and  domination  of  none,  I  say  that 
then,  animated  with  a  lofty  public  spirit,  he  will  place 
his  whole  power,  his  whole  intelligence,  his  very  faults,  and 
his  life  at  the  disposal  of  the  community  he  benefits  by  his 
existence. " 

Mr.  Hyndman  went  on  to  point  out  that  many  of  the 
reforms  adopted  by  the  Radicals  were  in  reality  due  to 
Socialist  inspiration.  He  instanced  the  eight  hours  day  and 
the  nationalisation  of  railways,  which  Mr.  Labouchere  had 
advocated,  and  concluded  what  must  have  been  a  stirring 
and  able  speech  as  follows: 

"Now  I  repeat,  friends  and  fellow-citizens,  that  we  are 
arguing  for  what  is  inevitable,  that  at  the  present  moment 
the  capitalist  system,  like  the  feudal  system  before  it,  and 
chattel  slavery  before  that,  heads  back  progress.  I  say 


LABOUCHERE  AND   SOCIALISM  489 

that  now,  in  many  directions  the  force  of  electricity,  and 
various  great  mechanical  and  chemical  inventions,  which 
might  tend  to  the  benefit  of  the  race  are  being  headed  back 
by  low  wages  and  vested  private  interests.  I  don't  think 
anybody  can  deny  that.  It  must  be  admitted  also  that 
universal  commercial  crises  have  occurred  time  after  time 
in  this  century,  each  one  worse  than  the  one  before  it.  Since 
the  Baring  crisis  of  1890  there  have  been  great  financial 
difficulties,  and  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  people 
have  been  thrown  out  of  work.  Why?  Not  because  there 
is  not  plenty  of  wealth  to  be  produced,  but  because,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  power  to  produce  it  is  taken  from  the 
producers  altogether.  I  say  that,  whether  we  like  it  or  not, 
a  system  of  Socialism  is  being  built  up  out  of  the  facts  of 
to-day.  From  the  misery  we  see  around  us  there  is  neces- 
sarily arising  a  glorious  future,  the  golden  age  which  all  the 
greatest  of  the  sons  of  men  from  Plato  and  Moore  onward 
have  desired  and  foreseen,  an  age  in  which  wage-slavery  and 
competition  having  ceased,  men  will  co-operate  for  the 
greater  advantage  and  enjoyment  of  all.  Friends,  that 
which  the  great  thinkers  of  old  saw  through  a  glass  darkly 
we  see  face  to  face.  We  are  the  inheritors  of  the  martyrdom 
of  men  to  the  forms  of  production  and  distribution  through- 
out the  ages.  I  ask  you  to-night  not  to  treat  this  question 
as  being  brought  down  to  you  from  on  high,  but  as  growing 
up  under  your  feet  below.  Consider  it  earnestly  for  the 
sake  of  the  men,  women,  and  children  who  are  being  crushed 
down  in  our  cities,  and  whose  lives  may  be  rendered  worthy 
and  happy.  Let  us  uplift  ourselves  at  once  from  the  ques- 
tion of  twopenny  and  twopenny-halfpenny  profit  into  a 
higher,  nobler,  and  more  glorious  sphere." 

Mr.  J.  G.  Smith,  on  behalf  of  the  Socialists,  wound  up 
the  proceedings  by  proposing  a  vote  of  thanks  to  both 
speakers.  He  expressed  his  appreciation  of  the  "sincerity 
and  honesty"  with  which  Mr.  Labouchere  had  met  Mr. 
Hyndman. 


490  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

Opinions  will  probably  differ  as  to  who  really  got  the 
better  of  this  encounter,  nor  shall  I  be  rash  enough  to 
award  the  palm.  At  least  Mr.  Labouchere's  speech  shows 
the  sort  of  way  in  which  he  approached  the  question.  It 
shows  his  dislike  of  theory,  his  determination  to  stick  to  the 
concrete,  and  his  distaste  for  rhetoric. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

MR.  LABOUCHERE  AS  A  JOURNALIST 
BY  MR.  R.  BENNETT,  EDITOR  OF  "  TRUTH  " 

MR.  Labouchere  went  into  newspaper  work  with  all  the 
best  qualifications  that  a  journalist  can  have,  and 
with  many  that  no  other  journalist  has  ever  had  a  chance  of 
possessing.  He  had  an  inborn  gift  for  writing,  using  his 
pen  by  sheer  force  of  natural  impulse.  He  took  a  lively  and 
unfailing  interest  in  all  the  doings,  sayings,  and  thoughts  of 
his  fellow  creatures,  while  looking  at  all  human  affairs  with 
critical  but  dispassionate  detachment.  His  reflections,  if 
not  very  profound,  were  always  acute,  novel,  and  humor- 
ous; and  he  had  a  method  of  expression,  whether  in  speech 
or  writing,  peculiarly  his  own — pithy,  witty,  and  unconven- 
tional. He  was  a  great  reader;  he  was  at  home  in  French, 
German,  and  Italian;  he  had  acquired  a  smattering  of  the 
classics  at  Eton  and  Cambridge;  and  he  had  a  retentive 
memory.  When  he  first  took  up  journalism  he  was  nearly 
forty,  and  he  had  had  an  unrivalled  experience  of  all  phases 
of  life,  extending  from  Jerusalem  to  Mexico.  Among  other 
things,  he  had  spent  ten  years  as  an  attache"  in  six  or  eight 
different  capitals;  he  had  gambled  in  nearly  every  casino 
in  Europe;  he  had  travelled  with  a  circus  in  America;  he 
had  run  a  theatre  in  London;  he  had  sat  in  the  House  of 
Commons;  he  had  dabbled  in  finance  in  the  city.  Add  to 
all  this  that  he  had  a  considerable  aptitude  for  business,  as 
for  most  other  things;  lastly  that  he  was  never  under  any 

491 


492  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

obligation  to  write  a  line  except  to  please  himself;  and  it  is 
not  surprising  that  he  made  a  distinguished  mark  in  the  world 
of  journalism.  It  is  perhaps  not  too  much  to  say  that  the 
best  work  of  his  life  was  done  as  a  journalist. 

Yet  he  seems  to  have  tumbled  into  this  work  quite 
accidentally,  and  in  the  most  unusual  fashion.  He  began 
as  a  newspaper  proprietor;  he  subsequently  became  an 
editor;  and  he  ended  as  a  casual  unpaid  contributor.  This 
strange  inversion  of  the  normal  career  of  a  successful  journal- 
ist is  in  keeping  with  everything  else  in  his  life  and  character. 
The  story  of  his  proprietorship  of  the  Daily  News  and  of  his 
association  with  Edmund  Yates  on  the  World  has  been  told 
elsewhere  in  this  book.  His  work  on  those  papers,  extending 
over  seven  years,  had  given  Mr.  Labouchere  a  useful  and 
varied  experience  of  very  different  classes  of  journalism 
when  he  decided,  in  1876,  to  start  a  journal  of  his  own. 
There  had  been  no  quarrel  of  any  kind  between  him  and 
Yates,  and  it  was  not  in  any  spirit  of  antagonism  to  the 
proprietor  of  the  World  that  he  decided  to  make  his  own 
paper  one  of  the  same  type.  At  that  date  there  was  rather 
a  reaction  against  the  solidity  and  stolidity  of  the  older 
journalism,  and  out  of  it  had  sprung  a  class  of  journals 
animated  by  a  lighter  spirit,  and  handling  both  men  and 
things  in  a  free  and  easy  style.  Vanity  Fair  and  the  World 
had  been  very  successful  in  this  line,  and  their  spirit  appealed 
to  Mr.  Labouchere,  who  detested  pretentiousness  in  every 
shape,  and  to  the  end  of  his  days  never  ceased  to  regard  as  a 
ridiculous  object  the  journalist  who  takes  himself  seriously. 
"What  is  Truth?"  asked  some  successor  of  jesting  Pilate, 
who  had  heard  of  the  title  proposed  for  the  new  paper. 
"Another  and  a  better  World, "  replied  Labouchere;  and 
the  quip  no  doubt  expressed  correctly  what  he  had  in  his 
mind.  The  spirit  in  which  he  proposed  to  endow  London 
with  a  new  journal  is  perhaps  even  better  shown  in  the  title 
originally  projected  for  this  organ,  which  was,  not  "Truth, " 
but  "The  Lyre."  It  was  in  deference  to  the  opinion  of 


MR.  LABOUCHERE  AS  A  JOURNALIST        493 

Horace  Voules  that  Mr.  Labouchere  consented  to  abandon 
"The  Lyre"  in  favour  of  "Truth."  Voules's  business 
instinct,  which  was  highly  developed,  warned  him  that  it  is 
better  to  assume  a  virtue  if  you  have  it  not.  No  doubt  he 
was  right.  Nobody,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  yet  had  the 
courage  to  start  a  paper  called  "The  Lyre, "  but  Mr.  Labou- 
chere would  have  done  it  had  he  been  left  to  himself. 

The  mention  of  Voules  reminds  one  that  Mr.  Labou- 
chere's  first  step  when  he  had  decided  upon  his  new  venture 
was  to  find  a  competent  practical  journalist  to  undertake  the 
"donkey  work."  In  a  lucky  moment  he  fell  upon  Horace 
St.  George  Voules,  who  eventually  became  his  alter  ego  in 
Truth  office.  Horace  Voules  himself  was  a  man  of  very 
remarkable  personality  and  abilities.  He  was  the  son  of  a 
well-known  solicitor  at  Windsor,  who,  by  a  strange  freak  of 
fortune,  was  the  local  Tory  election  agent,  and  as  such  had 
been  instrumental  in  unseating  Mr.  Labouchere  when  he 
was  returned  for  that  borough.  While  still  only  a  boy  Voules 
had  formed  an  ambition  to  become  a  journalist,  and,  by  way 
of  beginning  at  the  beginning,  had  entered  the  great  printing 
and  publishing  house  of  Cassell,  Fetter,  and  Galpin  as  a 
printer's  apprentice.  He  made  his  way  upward  with  extra- 
ordinary ability,  and  the  partners  formed  such  a  high  opinion 
of  him  that  when,  in  1868,  they  started  the  Echo— the  first 
London  halfpenny  paper — they  put  Voules  in  as  business 
manager.  He  was  then  only  four-and-twenty.  He  con- 
tinued to  manage  the  Echo  with  remarkable  success  till  the 
summer  of  1876,  when  it  was  acquired  by  the  late  Mr.  Pass- 
more  Edwards,  and  Voules  resigned.  He  went  away  to  take 
a  holiday,  and  a  few  weeks  later  received  a  letter  from  Mr. 
Labouchere  asking  him  to  come  and  see  him.  This  was  the 
beginning  of  an  intimate  association  which  lasted  till  Voules's 
death  in  1909.  An  agreement  was  entered  into  under  which 
Voules  was  to  be"  manager"  of  Truth  at  a  very  modest  salary, 
though  with  a  percentage  of  the  profits  which  ultimately 
proved  very  valuable;  and  this  agreement  was  the  only  one 


494  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

ever  concluded  between  the  proprietor  and  his  second-in- 
command,  although  for  the  last  twenty-five  years  of  Voules's 
life  the  whole  editorial  and  financial  control  of  the  paper  was 
in  his  hands  alone.  Another  point  of  interest  is  that  to  meet 
the  expenses  of  the  new  paper  Mr.  Labouchere  opened  a 
special  account  with  his  bankers  and  paid  into  it  the  sum  of 
£1000.  Some  time  later,  when  the  growth  of  the  business 
necessitated  more  capital,  this  sum  was  increased  to  £1500; 
but  for  the  first  few  years  £1000  was  the  whole  of  the  capital 
that  Mr.  Labouchere  invested  in  his  venture,  and  practically 
it  was  never  touched ;  that  is  to  say,  the  account  which  he 
opened  in  1876  with  that  credit  remained  with  at  least  that 
amount  to  its  credit  until  he  sold  the  paper  in  1910.  From 
those  details  it  may  be  gathered  that  neither  the  proprietor 
nor  his  manager  regarded  themselves  as  entering  upon  an 
enterprise  of  any  great  pith  or  moment,  or  imagined  that 
they  were  founding  a  journal  which  would  become  famous 
over  the  whole  world.  It  certainly  did  not  occur  to  Horace 
Voules,  then  an  ambitious  and  remarkably  successful  young 
man  of  thirty-two,  that  in  becoming  "manager"  of  this 
undertaking  at  £600  a  year  he  was  taking  a  position  that 
would  occupy  him  for  the  rest  of  his  days. 

In  such  circumstances  the  first  number  of  Truth  made  its 
appearance  in  the  first  week  of  1877.  It  was  a  decided  success, 
as  success  in  that  class  of  journals  was  reckoned  at  that  date, 
though  the  sale  of  the  first  number  was  only  a  fraction  of  the 
figures  reached  fifteen  or  twenty  years  later.  What  was  of 
more  consequence,  and  perhaps  more  surprising,  the  second 
and  following  numbers  were  equally  successful;  for  the 
production  of  a  new  journal  is  rather  like  the  production  of  a 
new  play — a  full  and  enthusiastic  house  on  the  first  night 
does  not  necessarily  mean  a  long  run.  Horace  Voules  was 
fond  of  boasting  that  Truth  had  paid  its  way  from  the  first, 
and  some  of  the  credit  of  that  result  was  undoubtedly  due 
to  his  great  business  abilities.  Mr.  Labouchere  had  not 
gone  into  the  venture  with  any  idea  of  making  money. 


MR.  LABOUCHERE  AS  A  JOURNALIST        495 

He  knew  the  history  of  the  early  difficulties  of  the  World, 
which  have  been  referred  to  in  an  earlier  chapter  of  this 
volume,  and  it  was  probably  an  agreeable  surprise  to  him 
that  he  was  not  called  upon  to  meet  a  loss  on  the  first  few 
months'  working  of  Truth.  In  an  interview  which  appeared 
in  one  of  the  monthly  magazines  a  few  years  ago,  Voules 
described  the  scepticism  with  which  his  chief  received  the 
balance-sheet  presented  to  him  at  the  end  of  the  first  six 
months.  It  appeared  to  Labouchere  too  good  to  be  true, 
and  he  exercised  his  ingenuity  in  attempts  to  demolish  it. 
In  later  years  his  attitude  towards  balance-sheets  was  very 
different. 

The  combination  of  Labouchere  and  Voules  was  a  very 
powerful  one.  Few  newspapers  have  ever  had  a  more 
remarkable  pair  of  brains  and  personalities  behind  them — 
the  one  acute,  ready-witted,  audacious,  irresponsible,  intent 
only  upon  amusing  himself  and  amusing  his  readers;  the 
other  long-headed,  business-like,  strenuous,  and  pushful, 
intent  only  upon  making  money.  The  time  came  when  Truth 
owed  everything  to  the  guidance  and  inspiration  of  Horace 
Voules;  but  at  the  start  it  was  Mr.  Labouchere  who  made  the 
paper.  This  can  easily  be  seen  on  looking  back  to  the  files 
of  the  journal  during  the  first  two  or  three  years  of  its  exist- 
ence. There  was  nothing  very  striking  or  sensational  in  the 
matter  of  its  contents ;  in  form  and  substance  it  did  not  differ 
materially  from  the  journals  of  the  same  class  that  had  pre- 
ceded and  followed  it.  But  the  hand  and  spirit  of  Labou- 
chere were  all  over  it,  and  gave  it  a  character  and  individuality 
which  were  bound  to  make  the  fortune  of  any  journal.  His 
literary  activity  at  this  period  was  amazing.  As  Voules  used 
to  say,  he  was  exactly  like  a  child  with  a  new  toy;  and  after 
playing  with  many  toys  he  had  found  the  one  which  exactly 
suited  him,  for  the  handling  of  a  pen  was  his  greatest  joy. 
"He  would  have  written  the  whole  paper  if  he  could,"  said 
Voules.  In  point  of  fact  for  a  time  he  did  write  a  con- 
siderable part  of  it  every  week.  He  poured  out  amusing 


496  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

paragraphic  commentaries  on  every  subject  of  the  moment 
that  interested  him,  and  flooded  the  paper  with  droll  remi- 
niscences of  his  own  adventures  and  the  innumerable  dis- 
tinguished people  whom  he  had  met  in  all  parts  of  the  world. 
He  "did"  the  dramatic  criticism,  and  he  never  did  anything 
better;  in  this  owing  much,  no  doubt,  to  his  personal  experi- 
ence as  a  theatrical  manager.  He  wrote  every  week  a 
"City"  article — a  very  unconventional  kind  of  City  article, 
quite  unlike  any  product  of  financial  journalism  before  or 
since.  It  broke  out  occasionally  in  the  most  unexpected 
directions;  for  example,  one  finds  an  irresistibly  comic 
account  of  his  experiences  among  brigands  in  Mexico  crop- 
ping up  in  a  survey  of  the  financial  position  of  that  country. 

Starting  on  another  occasion  to  discuss  the  merits  of 
Greek  stocks,  he  lapses  into  a  disquisition  upon  the  character 
of  the  modern  Greeks,  especially  the  peasantry,  illuminated 
by  reminiscences  of  his  travels  in  their  country.  One  of  the 
funniest  things  he  ever  wrote — a  detailed  account  of  his 
journey  through  the  Holy  Land  with  the  Rev.  J.  M.  Bellew— 
made  its  appearance  as  an  integral  part  of  a  critique  of  some 
new  play.  The  connecting  link  between  the  two  things  was 
that  Mr.  Bellew's  son,  the  late  Mr.  Kyrle  Bellew,  had  made 
his  debut  on  that  first  night.  It  is  only  when  a  man  writes 
for  his  own  paper  that  he  can  do  this  sort  of  thing;  what 
would  be  the  emotions  of  any  normal  editor  on  receiving  from 
his  dramatic  critic  a  three-column  narrative  of  a  journey  in 
Palestine  as  part  of  a  notice  of  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw's  last 
masterpiece!  It  was  the  spontaneity,  this  unexpectedness, 
the  evident  absence  of  all  premeditation  or  effort,  as  well  as 
a  sort  of  irresponsible  indifference  to  the  ostensible  business 
of  the  moment,  that  gave  such  a  piquancy  to  Mr. 
Labouchere's  writing,  as  it  did  to  his  conversation.  It  was 
something  quite  new  in  journalism,  and  it  remains  to  this 
moment  absolutely  unique. 

Another  characteristic  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  which  gave  a 
peculiar  flavour  to  Truth  was  his  frankness  and  disregard  for 


MR.  LABOUCHERE  AS  A  JOURNALIST        497 

the  convenances  in  speaking  about  his  contemporaries.  He 
had  no  taste  for  mere  tittle-tattle  and  scandal-mongering  in 
print.  Prying  into  the  private  life  of  well-known  people 
was  rather  a  weakness  of  the  "society  journals"  of  the  day, 
among  which  Truth  was  classed,  and  Mr.  Labouchere  never 
favoured  it.  But  it  must  be  admitted  that  in  private  con- 
versation he  was  an  inveterate  gossip,  always  well-posted 
in  whatever  talk  was  current  to  the  discredit  of  anybody 
sufficiently  known  to  be  talked  about;  and  when  he  found 
occasion  to  speak  about  any  person  in  print,  all  that  he  knew 
about  that  person  was  apt  to  come  out,  with  precisely  the 
same  unconventional  frankness  that  distinguished  his  own 
personal  confessions.  Added  to  this  he  was  not  only  con- 
temptuous of  pretence,  sham,  and  humbug  in  every  shape, 
hating  "snobbism"  in  its  widest  sense  as  heartily  as  Thack- 
eray himself,  but  he  was  hopelessly  devoid  of  the  spirit  of 
reverence,  even  in  regard  to  matters  that  usually  receive 
reverence  on  their  merits.  Nothing  was  sacred  to  him. 
He  seemed  to  discover  instinctively  the  seamy  side  of  what 
other  people  admire,  and  to  find  a  delight  in  calling  attention 
to  it;  and  this  mischievous  habit  of  mind  displayed  itself 
in  his  handling  of  men  as  well  as  things.  Introduced  into 
journalism,  and  fortified  with  an  extensive  knowledge  of  life 
picked  up  in  the  diplomatic  service,  the  theatrical  world  and 
the  city,  and  in  the  ordinary  social  intercourse  of  a  man  of 
good  family  related  on  all  sides  to  distinguished  people, 
Mr.  Labouchere's  natural  bent  of  mind  and  freedom  of  speech 
led  to  the  embellishment  of  Truth  almost  every  week  with 
candid  observations  upon  contemporary  personages,  which 
might  be  open  to  criticism  on  the  score  of  taste,  but  which 
made  extremely  entertaining  reading. 

Inevitably  his  pen  got  him  into  trouble.  The  only 
wonder  is  that  the  trouble  was  not  more  serious,  and  for 
this  it  may  be  safely  assumed  that  Mr.  Labouchere  was  much 
indebted  to  Mr.  Horace  Voules.  After  a  very  few  weeks 
working  together,  the  two  men  became  very  intimate  friends, 

31 


498  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

and  Mr.  Labouchere,  who  rarely  erred  in  his  reading  of  men, 
acquired  a  great  respect  for  Voules's  judgment,  so  much  so 
that,  in  characteristic  fashion,  he  speedily  turned  over  to  his 
friend  all  sorts  of  business  quite  unrelated  to  Truth.  Voules 
himself  was  essentially  a  fighting  man,  as  he  showed  when  he 
obtained  control  of  Truth,  but  he  had  the  mind  of  a  lawyer 
as  well  as  a  man  of  business,  and  he  had — though  it  may 
sound  paradoxical — a  much  greater  interest  in  the  profit 
of  the  paper  than  the  proprietor  himself.  From  the  first, 
although  nominally  only  concerned  with  the  commercial  side 
of  Truth,  he  read  in  proof  every  line  of  the  paper,  and  he  was 
not  the  man  to  allow  the  proprietor  or  anybody  else  to  tumble 
accidentally  into  an  indefensible  libel  action.  He  used  to 
say  that  he  had  often  saved  his  chief  from  that  fate,  and  no 
one  who  knew  them  both  would  doubt  him.  Another  thing 
which  often  saved  Mr.  Labouchere  was  his  invariable  readi- 
ness to  apologise  to  anybody  whom  he  had  unintentionally 
annoyed  or  injured.  He  did  so  on  many  occasions  in  the 
early  years  of  Truth,  and  he  would  always  do  it  if  he  was 
approached  in  the  right  way.  Not  only  this,  but  if  he  was 
once  persuaded  that  he  had  been  too  hard  on  a  man,  or  that 
what  he  had  intended  as  mere  play  had  seriously  wounded 
the  subject  of  his  playfulness,  he  would  often  try  afterwards 
to  make  amends.  In  more  than  one  instance  he  became 
quite  friendly  with  people  whom  he  had  more  or  less  insulted 
before  he  knew  them.  For  better  or  worse,  it  was  one  of  the 
cardinal  traits  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  character  that  he  was 
incapable  of  strong  emotion,  and,  among  others,  of  personal 
malice.  In  one  or  two  instances  he  conceived  rather  strong 
antipathies  to  individuals — not  without  reason — but  it  was 
entirely  foreign  to  his  nature  to  hurt  a  man  for  the  sake  of 
hurting  him;  and  a  most  remarkable  thing  about  him  was 
that  while  he  would  strenuously  attack  a  man's  conduct  or 
ridicule  unmercifully  his  speech  or  actions,  he  was  quite 
capable  of  meeting  the  same  man  in  a  perfectly  friendly 
spirit,  and  discussing  what  had  been  done  on  one  side  and 


MR.  LABOUCHERE  AS  A  JOURNALIST        499 

said  on  the  other,  not  only  without  heat,  but  with  a  sincere 
sympathy  for  the  victim  of  his  pen.  This  trait  was  essential 
in  his  character — a  result  of  that  philosophic  interest  in  his 
fellow  creatures  which  caused  him  to  look  at  all  of  them  alike 
without  any  conventional  bias  in  favour  of  one  mode  of  life 
or  action  rather  than  another.  If  he  had  encountered  a 
burglar  in  his  house  already  loaded  with  valuables,  his  first 
impulse  would  have  been,  not  to  call  the  police,  but  to  engage 
the  intruder  in  conversation,  and  to  learn  from  him  some- 
thing of  the  habits  of  burglars,  the  latest  and  most  scientific 
methods  of  burgling,  the  average  profits  of  the  business,  and 
so  forth.  He  would  have  been  delighted  to  assist  his  new 
acquaintance  with  suggestions  for  his  future  guidance  in  his 
profession,  and  to  point  out  to  him  how  he  might  have 
avoided  the  mistake  which  had  on  this  occasion  led  to  his 
being  caught  in  the  act.  In  all  this  he  would  not  by  any 
means  have  lost  sight  of  his  property;  on  the  contrary,  the 
whole  force  of  his  intellect  would  have  been  surreptitiously 
occupied  with  the  problem  of  recovering  it  with  the  least 
amount  of  inconvenience  to  his  friend  and  himself.  He 
would  have  manoeuvred  to  bring  off  a  deal.  If  by  sweet 
reasonableness  he  could  have  persuaded  the  burglar  to  give 
up  the  "swag,"  he  would  have  been  delighted  to  hand  him 
a  sovereign  or  two,  cheer  him  with  refreshment,  shake  hands, 
and  wish  him  better  luck  next  time;  and  he-  would  have 
related  the  whole  story  in  the  next  week's  Truth  with  infinite 
humour  and  profound  satisfaction. 

This  is  scarcely  an  effort  of  imagination.  Something 
very  similar  happened  in  Truth  office  in  the  'nineties  long 
after  Mr.  Labouchere  had  ceased  to  take  any  active  interest 
in  his  paper.  A  money-lender  who  had  been  severely,  but 
not  unjustly,  handled  in  Truth,  insisted  upon  seeing  Mr. 
Labouchere  personally.  By  that  time  Horace  Voules  was 
the  only  person  who  ever  saw  anybody  who  had  business 
with  the  editor,  but  he  happened  to  be  away,  and  Labouchere 
consented  to  see  the  man.  The  money-lender  arrived  in  a 


500  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

most  truculent  mood ;  but  he  was  quickly  disarmed  by  La- 
bouchere's  ignorance — perfectly  genuine — of  the  nature  of 
his  grievance,  and  beguiled  into  telling  his  story  with  artless 
confidence.  What  threatened  at  first  to  be  a  heated  wrangle 
developed  into  a  friendly  interchange  of  views,  in  which 
Mr.  Labouchere,  showing  a  keen  scientific  interest  in  money- 
lending  operations,  explained  to  his  visitor  exactly  where  he 
was  at  fault  in  the  management  of  his  business,  and  gave 
him  a  few  practical  hints  which  might  assist  him  to  make 
larger  profits  without  exposing  himself  to  unfavourable 
remark.  The  man  seemed  extremely  pleased  with  the  valu- 
able advice  he  received,  and  it  was  his  own  fault  if  he  did  not 
depart  very  much  the  wiser  for  the  interview.  When  Mr. 
Labouchere  was  writing  at  large  in  the  early  days  of  Truth, 
he  made  a  great  many  people  extremely  angry,  and  some 
never  forgave  him.  But  to  be  angry  with  him  if  you  met  him 
face  to  face  was  only  possible  for  the  very  stupid.  Some 
few  years  ago  the  late  Mr.  John  Kensit  made  an  unsuccessful 
application  to  the  High  Court  to  commit  the  proprietor  of 
Truth  for  contempt.  Considering  all  that  had  been  said 
about  him  in  the  paper,  he  had  considerable  ground  for  not 
loving  its  proprietor,  even  if  he  had  been  aware,  which  he 
was  not,  that  Mr.  Labouchere  had  never  had  a  hand  in  what 
had  been  said  about  him.  But  they  sat  next  to  one  another 
in  the  well  of  the  court  during  the  hearing  of  the  motion, 
and  by  the  time  the  case  was  on  they  were  chatting  and  laugh- 
ing together  like  old  friends.  ' '  Good-bye,  Mr.  Labouchere, ' ' 
said  the  Protestant  champion  at  the  end  of  the  proceedings. 
"This  has  been  quite  a  pleasant  meeting."  "I  hope  you 
have  enjoyed  it  as  much  as  I  have,"  answered  Labby. 
"I  am  sorry  that  you  have  got  to  pay  for  it."  And  they 
shook  hands  affectionately. 

On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Labouchere  had  a  certain  com- 
bativeness  of  disposition,  and  he  was  from  the  first  bent 
upon  using  Truth  for  the  exposure  of  abuses  and  frauds  on  the 
public.  Consequently,  in  a  certain  number  of  cases  he 


MR.  LABOUCHERE  AS  A  JOURNALIST        501 

deliberately  laid  himself  out  to  attack  individuals,  regardless 
of  the  penalties  of  the  law  of  libel.  His  journal  had  not  been 
in  existence  many  months  before  an  action  was  commenced 
by  Mr.  Robertson,  the  manager  of  the  Royal  Aquarium  at 
Westminster.  Mr.  Labouchere  was  a  director  of  the  com- 
pany owning  that  place,  and  he  wrote  very  fully  and  frankly 
about  its  affairs  in  Truth — in  particular  a  humorous  account 
in  his  best  manner,  of  an  altercation  between  Robertson 
and  himself  in  the  fair  at  Boulogne.  The  circumstances  of 
the  action  are  of  no  interest  now ;  but  the  case  is  memorable 
as  the  first  of  the  long  series  of  libel  actions  that  Truth  has 
successfully  defended  in  the  course  of  its  existence,  and  further 
as  the  occasion  of  one  of  the  earliest  forensic  successes  of 
Charles  Russell,  afterwards  Lord  Russell  of  Killowen,  and 
an  intimate  friend  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 
Russell  had  not  at  that  time  taken  silk,  and  was  little  known, 
but  Mr.  George  Lewis  (as  he  then  was)  and  Mr.  Labouchere 
had  sufficient  confidences  in  his  abilities  to  brief  him  without 
a  leader,  and  the  experiment  was  fully  justified  by  the  result. 
The  next  legal  proceeding  in  which  Mr.  Labouchere  involved 
himself  was  a  cause  celebre  of  the  first  dimensions — his  pro- 
secution by  the  proprietor  of  the  Daily  Telegraph  on  account 
of  a  series  of  persistent  and,  it  must  be  confessed,  somewhat 
vicious  attacks  upon  the  management  of  that  journal.  Mr. 
Labouchere  elected  to  defend  himself,  and  he  has  rarely 
acquitted  himself  in  public  with  more  address  than  he  did 
on  that  occasion,  though  he  had  a  good  deal  of  useful  assist- 
ance from  the  late  Lord  Justice  Bowen,  then  a  stuff  gowns- 
man, who  was  briefed  for  the  printers  of  the  paper.  There 
is  no  occasion  at  this  date  to  revive  other  circumstances  of 
this  personal  encounter  between  two  eminent  representatives 
of  journalism.  The  jury  disagreed,  the  case  was  not  brought 
to  trial  again,  and  the  hatchet  was  buried.  Mr.  Labouchere 
was  released  on  his  own  recognisances,  and  many  years  later 
he  used  to  be  fond  of  explaining  that  he  was  still  in  that  con- 
dition. Apparently  he  remained  in  it  till  his  death. 


502  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

One  other  libel  case  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  early  journalistic 
days  may  be  recalled  for  the  sake  of  the  very  characteristic 
accident  out  of  which  it  arose.  Mr.  Labouchere  had  written 
something  extremely  dangerous.  Voules  noted  it  on  the 
proof,  and  after  a  consultation  between  them  Mr.  Labouchere 
agreed  to  take  the  passage  out.  He  accordingly  drew  his 
pen  through  two  or  three  of  the  incriminating  lines,  or 
rather  he  attempted  to  do  so;  but  his  pen  always  worked  in 
rather  an  erratic  way,  and  the  marks  he  made  on  the  proof 
were  as  much  under  the  words  as  through  them.  The  con- 
sequence was  that  the  printer  misunderstood  the  intention, 
and  the  libellous  passage  which  had  alarmed  Voules  not  only 
appeared  in  the  paper,  but  appeared  with  the  additional 
emphasis  of  italics !  This  was  one  of  the  accidents  which  had 
to  be  repaired  with  an  apology,  though  this  did  not  prevent 
the  issue  of  a  writ.  If  any  other  actions  for  libel  were  com- 
menced in  the  early  years  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  editorship 
they  did  not  lead  to  serious  fighting,  and  there  was  nothing 
in  them  worth  recalling  now.  But  he  certainly  contrived 
in  the  course  of  three  or  four  years  to  give  his  paper  a  great 
reputation  for  courageous  plain  speaking,  and  to  convey  the 
impression  that  its  proprietor  was  a  dangerous  man  to  fall 
foul  of,  and  a  difficult  man  to  tackle  successfully. 

As  for  his  work  as  an  editor  during  that  time,  he  seems  to 
have  taken  it  very  easily  after  the  first  few  weeks.  "I  will 
give  him  six  months, "  Edmund  Yates  was  reported  to  have 
said  when  his  friend  was  beginning  with  such  a  big  splash; 
and  the  thought  was  not  begotten  of  a  wish,  but  of  Yates's 
knowledge  of  his  late  contributor.  The  fatal  weakness  of 
Mr.  Labouchere's  character — certainly  during  the  second 
forty  years  of  his  life,  and  probably  during  the  first  forty- 
was  incapacity  for  sustained  effort.  He  quickly  grew  tired 
of  everything  he  took  in  hand,  and  he  hated  drudgery  and 
routine  work.  Horace  Voules  used  to  relate  his  amazement 
at  the  zest  with  which  his  chief,  at  the  first  start,  threw 
himself  into  the  work  of  reading  copy  and  proofs,  and  criticis- 


MR.  LABOUCHERE  AS  A  JOURNALIST        503 

ing  and  planning  improvements  in  the  paper  when  it  was 
produced ;  and  his  equal  amazement  at  the  process  by  which 
such  editorial  functions  were  one  by  one  delegated  to  the 
so-called  "manager,"  never  again  to  be  resumed.  The 
same  story  is  told  by  others  who  were  familiar  with  the 
inside  of  Truth  office  during  its  early  days.  From  the  first 
Voules's  position  was  that  of  an  assistant-editor,  and  in 
the  course  of  a  year  or  two  he  became  very  much  more  of  an 
editor  than  an  assistant,  while  the  editor  lapsed  into  the 
position  of  an  adviser  and  an  indefatigable  contributor.  It 
must  have  been  in  1878  or  1879  that  Voules  went  away  for 
a  holiday  on  the  Continent,  and  received  a  letter  in  which 
Mr.  Labouchere  informed  him  that  there  was  very  little 
going  on,  and  added,  "  I  do  not  think  I  shall  bring  the  paper 
out  next  week."  Voules  believed  him  to  be  perfectly  cap- 
able of  this  enormity,  and  the  mere  thought  of  it  filled  him 
with  such  dismay  that  he  came  back  to  London  by  the  next 
train.  "You  need  not  have  worried  yourself  so  about  it," 
said  Mr.  Labouchere  when  his  colleague  reached  the  office. 
"Probably  I  should  have  brought  the  paper  out  all  right." 
But,  unlike  his  employer,  Voules  was  very  given  to  worrying 
himself,  and  this  incident  worried  him  so  much  that  he  never 
left  the  proprietor  in  charge  of  his  own  paper  again.  At 
holiday  times  he  used  always  to  take  a  house  within  easy 
reach  of  London,  and  it  is  a  fact  that  for  fourteen  or  fifteen 
years,  until  he  had  his  first  bad  illness,  he  never  missed  seeing 
Truth  to  press  himself.  This  little  incident,  so  very  char- 
acteristic of  Mr.  Labouchere,  at  least  serves  to  justify  the 
observation  that  he  soon  learned  to  take  his  editorial  func- 
tions lightly ;  and  it  shows  the  waning  of  the  zest  with  which 
he  had  taken  up  the  "new  toy"  a  year  or  two  previously. 
Until  the  general  election  of  1880,  Mr.  Labouchere 
remained  regular  in  his  attendance  at  the  office,  and  actively 
interested  in  the  affairs  of  his  journal  if  his  principal  work 
for  it  was  purely  literary.  But  after  he  was  returned  for 
Northampton  and  began  to  make  a  figure  in  Parliament,  which 


504  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

he  did  almost  from  the  first,  Truth  began  to  have  a  secondary 
place  in  his  affections.  In  the  course  of  the  next  year  or  two 
he  seems  to  have  gradually  relinquished  the  entire  editorial 
control  into  Voules's  hands.  He  ceased  to  supply  dramatic 
criticism,  and  to  write  with  any  regularity  on  city  matters. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  naturally  began  to  write  regularly  on 
politics,  which  up  to  that  time  he  had  done  only  now  and  then 
and  without  expressing  any  strong  opinions.  At  that  date 
the  connection  between  the  Press  and  Parliament  was  much 
less  intimate  than  it  has  since  become.  The  journalistic 
M.  P.,  so  familiar  a  figure  in  recent  years,  was  virtually 
unknown.  There  were  only  two  or  three  newspaper  pro- 
prietors in  the  House  of  Commons;  none  in  the  House  of 
Lords.  The  descriptive  reporter  had  not  yet  made  his 
appearance  in  the  Press  Gallery;  the  gentlemen  there  were 
shorthand  writers  only.  The  Lobby  correspondent  had  not 
risen  to  that  public  importance  for  which  he  was  destined. 
Mr.  Labouchere  consequently  had  the  field  very  much  to 
himself  as  a  parliamentary  journalist.  Perhaps  he  did  not 
make  as  much  use  of  the  opportunity  as  he  would  have  done 
three  or  four  years  earlier,  when  journalism  for  its  own  sake 
had  such  a  hold  upon  his  affections.  He  was  always  ex- 
tremely averse  to  using  his  parliamentary  position  for  the 
advantage  of  his  own  paper;  indeed,  so  far  did  he  carry  this 
feeling  that  in  later  years  when  any  matter  was  under 
ventilation  in  Truth,  which  naturally  furnished  matter  for 
the  interrogation  of  a  Minister,  it  was  most  difficult  to  obtain 
his  assistance,  and  quite  impossible  to  persuade  him  to  ask 
a  question  himself.  If  he  consented  to  give  his  help,  he 
nearly  always  got  a  friend  to  put  the  question  down.  From 
first  to  last — to  the  intense  annoyance  of  Horace  Voules — 
his  disposition  was  always  to  use  his  own  journal  as  an  aid 
to  his  schemes  and  ambitions  in  Parliament,  never  his 
parliamentary  position  for  the  advantage  of  his  journal. 

Nevertheless,  the  reputation  that  he  speedily  made  for 
himself  in  the  House  of  Commons,  his  novel  and  individual 


MR.  LABOUCHERE  AS  A  JOURNALIST        505 

style  of  handling  politics  and  politicians — friends  and  foes 
alike — and  the  audacity  of  the  opinions  which  he  was 
always  delivering  with  an  air  "that  was  childlike  and  bland, " 
necessarily  had  their  effect  upon  the  paper  that  he  owned 
and  wrote  for.  As  the  organ  of  a  rising  M.  P.,  constantly 
before  the  public,  and  a  mouthpiece  of  advanced  Radicalism, 
Truth  gained  more  than  it  lost  by  the  cessation  of  Mr. 
Labouchere's  exuberant  literary  activity.  The  circulation 
of  the  paper,  which  had  not  increased  to  any  great  extent 
between  1877  and  1880,  now  began  to  display  considerable 
buoyancy.  At  the  same  time  Horace  Voules  was  beginning 
to  make  his  hand  felt.  He  enlisted  many  useful  recruits  to 
fill  the  space  left  vacant  by  Mr.  Labouchere.  In  particular 
he  developed  the  paper  on  the  financial  side,  having  a  strong 
fancy,  as  well  as  great  aptitude,  for  that  line  of  journalism. 
In  fact  he  may  be  considered  a  pioneer  in  it,  for  at  that  time 
there  was  not  a  single  financial  daily  paper  in  London,  and 
the  financial  articles  in  the  general  daily  Press  were  framed 
in  a  very  bald  and  perfunctory  style.  With  the  assistance 
of  Mr.  L.  Brousson,  who  wrote  for  Truth  with  most  valuable 
results  for  nearly  twenty  years  under  the  pseudonym  of 
"Moses  Moss,"  Voules  made  the  paper  as  strong  in  finance 
as  Mr.  Labouchere  made  it  in  politics,  and  very  much  more 
popular.  Voules  was  a  man  of  great  enterprise,  courage,  and 
resource,  a  sound  judge  of  "what  the  public  wants, "  and  at 
the  same  time  a  born  fighter.  He  wrote  little  himself,  but 
he  had  a  good  eye  for  literary  ability  in  others — at  any  rate 
the  kind  of  ability  that  he  needed  for  his  own  purpose. 
Following  up  the  lead  which  Mr.  Labouchere  had  given  in 
attacking  frauds  and  abuses,  he  made  during  the  'eighties 
several  big  journalistic  coups  by  the  exposure  of  financial 
swindles.  From  this  he  passed  on  to  the  fertile  field  of 
charity.  By  this  time  he  had  got  together  a  fairly  complete 
and  competent  staff  for  dealing  with  such  matters.  He  made 
a  thorough  investigation  of  every  subject  he  dealt  with.  He 
interviewed  witnesses  himself;  he  inspired  every  line  that 


506  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

was  written  for  publication.  Thus  fortified,  he  threw  down 
the  gauntlet  to  one  swindler  after  another.  Many  were 
routed  and  driven  out  of  the  field  by  the  mere  force  of  the 
case  made  against  them  in  Truth.  Others,  who  defended 
themselves  by  proceedings  for  libel,  were  met  and  overthrown 
one  after  another  in  the  Law  Courts.  The  story  of  all  these 
personal  encounters,  which  lasted  almost  continuously  for 
ten  or  twelve  years,  would  fill  a  volume — and  a  volume  with- 
out any  parallel  in  the  history  of  journalism.  The  work 
ended  only  because  there  was  no  more  to  be  done.  There 
was  no  game  left  worth  powder  and  shot.  Horace  Voules 
had  simply  cleared  out  this  particular  field.  Nor  was  his 
activity  confined  to  any  one  field.  The  public  services — 
particularly  the  Army — the  Church,  the  administration  of 
justice,  especially  by  justices  of  the  peace,  and  indeed  almost 
every  sphere  of  human  activity  where  there  was  any  wrong 
or  misconduct  that  required  castigation,  brought  perennial 
supplies  of  grist  to  the  journalistic  mill  over  which  Horace 
Voules  ruled  in  Carteret  Street. 

Thus  it  came  about  that  towards  the  end  of  the  last 
century  Truth  had  become  a  journal  with  a  unique  record, 
an  influence  that  was  felt — mostly  for  good — all  over  the 
English-speaking  world,  and  incidentally  a  very  valuable 
property.  Before  the  end  of  the  'eighties  it  must  have  begun 
to  yield  Mr.  Labouchere — a  rich  man  independently  of  it — 
a  larger  income  than  would  have  sufficed  for  all  his  require- 
ments, which  were  never  extravagant.  The  attitude  of  the 
parent  towards  his  bantling,  which  had  grown  in  such  an 
unexpected  fashion,  was  very  much  like  his  attitude  towards 
everything  else  that  happened  to  him  in  life.  If  he  took  any 
pride  in  his  offspring,  he  did  not  manifest  it  openly;  in  a 
general  way  he  betrayed  no  concern  in  its  performances. 
When  he  visited  the  office,  which  he  usually  did  for  an  hour 
or  two  on  Monday  and  Tuesday  mornings  on  his  way  to  the 
House  of  Commons,  it  was  only  to  correct  the  proofs  of  his 
own  contributions — by  this  time  almost  entirely  confined 


MR.  LABOUCHERE  AS  A  JOURNALIST        507 

to  politics,  except  when  he  went  abroad  in  the  autumn — to 
consume  a  frugal  lunch,  and  to  chat  about  anything  but  the 
business  of  his  paper  with  anybody  whom  he  could  find  to 
talk  to. 

A  personal  reminiscence  of  this  period  will  show  how 
strangely  uninterested  he  was  in  the  affairs  of  the  paper  which 
he  was  supposed  by  the  public  to  direct.  In  the  spring  of 
1893,  Horace  Voules  had  a  bad  illness,  the  first  of  many,  and 
as  he  kept  the  whole  business  of  the  office  in  his  hands  the 
situation  was  rather  serious.  I  went  down  to  see  him  at 
Brighton,  where  he  lived  for  the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life, 
and  heard  from  his  doctor  that  if  he  ever  came  back  at  all  it 
could  not  be  for  many  weeks.  On  returning  to  town  I  went 
straight  to  the  House  of  Commons  and  reported  this  alarm- 
ing intelligence  to  Mr.  Labouchere.  If  I  had  reported  it  to 
the  Speaker  he  could  not  have  manifested  less  concern. 
What  chiefly  interested  Mr.  Labouchere  was  the  nature  and 
treatment  of  Voules's  ailment;  he  was  always  prepared  to 
give  advice,  publicly  or  privately,  on  the  preservation  of 
health.  "  You  know  Voules  eats  a  great  deal  too  much, "  he 
said,  which  was  no  doubt  true.  ' '  His  doctor  should  do  so  and 
so.  I  will  write  to  him  at  once."  I  suggested  to  him  that 
it  might  be  more  useful  if  he  would  write  something  for  Truth, 
as  we  had  not  an  editorial  article  in  sight  for  next  week. 
"You  can  do  very  well  for  once  without  an  article,  can't 
you?"  was  the  staggering  reply.  I  endeavoured  to  convey 
to  him  that  there  was  a  great  deal  of  work  at  the  office  which 
somebody  would  have  to  do  in  Voules's  absence,  among 
other  things  about  fifty  letters  a  day  requiring  to  be  attended 
to.  "I  should  not  bother  myself  about  answering  letters 
if  I  were  you,"  said  my  employer.  This  did  not  surprise 
me  so  much,  for  I  had  previously  heard  from  Voules  of  our 
proprietor's  golden  rule  for  dealing  with  correspondence:  "I 
never  knew  a  letter  yet,  Voules,  which  would  not  answer 
itself  if  you  left  it  alone  for  two  months."  It  did  not  take 
many  minutes'  conversation  to  show  that  the  editor  was 


508  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

quite  the  last  person  from  whom  any  assistance  was  likely  to 
be  obtained  in  carrying  on  the  paper  in  the  emergency  that 
had  arisen ;  at  the  same  time  I  remember  that  we  had  a  very 
interesting  talk  about  the  Home  Rule  Bill  before  I  left  him. 
I  wondered  afterwards  what  he  would  have  said  if  I  had 
written  to  him  in  his  own  words  to  Voules,  "I  don't  think  I 
shall  bring  the  paper  out  next  week."  Probably  it  would 
not  have  disturbed  him  seriously.  It  should  be  added  that 
he  did  write  to  Voules  as  he  had  promised — a  very  kind, 
sympathetic  letter,  in  which  he  begged  Voules  above  all 
things  not  to  hurry  back,  and  assured  him  that  everything 
would  go  on  all  right  in  his  absence.  I  forget  whether  he 
said  that  he  would  see  to  that,  but  it  is  quite  possible  that  he 
did.  It  is  a  fact  that  the  following  week — the  first  in  which 
Voules  had  been  absent  for  about  fifteen  years — Mr.  Labou- 
chere  also  omitted  his  customary  visit  to  the  office  on  a 
Monday  morning.  I  suppose  he  thought  that  as  Voules  was 
away  I  should  not  have  much  time  to  talk  to  him. 

To  those  who  were  behind  the  scenes  there  was  something 
ludicrous  and  something  supremely  "  Laboucherean "  in  the 
contrast  between  this  airy  indifference  to  the  fortunes  of  his 
journal,  and  the  public  conception  of  the  proprietor  as  an 
indefatigable  editor  personally  inspiring  and  directing  all  its 
performances.  Possibly  it  amused  Mr.  Labouchere  himself, 
but  far  more  probably  he  never  gave  it  a  thought,  for  nothing 
in  his  life  that  appeared  to  other  people  abnormal  ever 
presented  itself  in  that  light  to  him.  To  any  one  who  knows 
the  laissez-aller  spirit  in  which  he  treated  every  affair  of  life, 
it  cannot  cause  the  slightest  surprise  that  he  allowed  himself 
to  drift  into  a  position  which  was,  on  the  face  of  it,  somewhat 
equivocal.  The  best  evidence  of  the  view  that  he  himself 
took  of  this  anomalous  position  is  afforded  by  the  way  it 
came  to  an  end.  Horace  Voules  chafed  for  a  long  time  under 
his  own  relation  to  the  titular  editor,  and  it  is  really  more 
difficult  to  understand  his  long  acceptance  of  this  position 
than  Mr.  Labouchere' s  failure  to  do  anything  towards 


MR.  LABOUCHERE  AS  A  JOURNALIST        509 

altering  it.  The  explanation  in  his  case,  no  doubt,  is  that 
with  the  growth  of  the  profits  of  the  business  he  gradually 
came  into  a  very  handsome  income,  and  he  was  a  man  who 
valued  this  a  good  deal  more  than  personal  glory.  But  he 
certainly  felt  aggrieved,  as  most  men  would,  that  so  much  of 
the  credit  of  his  work  should  go  to  another,  and  what  per- 
haps annoyed  him  more  was  Mr.  Labouchere's  characteristic 
indifference  to  everything  that  was  done  in  his  name.  Out 
of  this  there  grew  up  a  coolness  between  them,  and  at  last 
Voules  openly  kicked.  The  moment  the  question  of  the 
editorship  was  raised  in  this  way,  Mr.  Labouchere  instantly 
conceded  it,  as  Voules  might  have  known  he  would.  "My 
dear  Voules, "  he  said,  in  mild  surprise.  "  /  don't  want  to  be 
the  editor.  You  can  call  yourself  the  editor  if  you  like." 
In  his  own  mind  he  probably  said,  "  If  you  attach  any  value 
to  such  an  absurd  trifle,  why,  in  the  name  of  wonder,  did 
you  not  say  so  before?"  In  this  characteristic  fashion,  Mr. 
Labouchere  divested  himself  of  the  last  rags  of  editorship. 
Voules  recounted  the  conversation  to  me  immediately  after 
it  took  place.  I  cannot  fix  the  date  precisely,  but  it  was 
probably  in  1897  or  1898. 

There  remains  little  to  be  related  of  Mr  Labouchere's 
career  as  a  journalist.  But  it  may  assist  the  comprehension 
of  what  appears  difficult  to  understand,  in  his  relation  to  the 
real  editorship  of  his  paper  during  so  many  years,  to  refer 
to  what  passed  between  him  and  Voules  on  a  lamentable 
occasion  in  1902.  At  that  time  certain  unfortunate  circum- 
stances had  come  to  light  which  made  it  impossible  that 
Mr.  Brousson  should  remain  on  the  staff  of  Truth,  or  that 
Horace  Voules  should  continue  in  the  formal  position  of 
editor ;  I  trust  I  may  be  forgiven  for  referring  in  mere  detail 
to  the  indiscretion  of  an  old  and  dear  friend  and  the  sad  end 
of  a  brilliant  career.  Mr.  Labouchere,  to  whom  the  situation 
must  have  been  as  painful  as  to  anybody,  took  counsel  with 
Sir  George  Lewis,  as  a  friend  of  both  parties,  and  between 
them  they  excogitated  an  announcement  for  publication  to 


5io  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

the  effect  that  Mr.  Voules  had  resigned  the  editorship  of 
Truth,  but  would  remain  associated  with  the  paper.  It  was 
the  least  that  could  have  been  announced  under  the  cir- 
cumstances, but  naturally  poor  Voules  fought  hard  against  it, 
and  a  warm  debate  took  place  at  Sir  George  Lewis's  office. 
Voules  wanted  to  know  who  was  to  be  appointed  editor,  and 
in  what  capacity  he  himself  was  to  be"  associated  with  the 
paper. "  He  declined  to  submit  to  the  humiliation  of  having 
to  serve  under  one  of  his  own  subordinates.  Mr.  Labouchere 
told  him  that  he  did  not  see  the  necessity  of  appointing 
another  editor.  "  You  can't  seriously  propose  that  the  paper 
is  to  be  carried  on  without  an  editor,"  said  Voules.  "My 
dear  Voules, "  replied  the  proprietor,  "  I  have  now  been  con- 
nected with  newspapers  over  forty  years,  and  I  have  never 
yet  discovered  what  an  editor  is.  If  you  like,  I  will  resume 
the  editorship,  but  it  seems  to  me  quite  unnecessary." 
So  little  did  Voules  understand  his  old  friend  even  at  that 
date  that  he  came  to  me  at  the  end  of  the  interview  in  a 
terrible  state  of  agitation,  convinced  that  Labouchere  was 
playing  with  him,  and  that  he  and  I  were  to  change  places. 
Labouchere  was,  of  course,  perfectly  serious,  and  for  the 
next  seven  years  Truth  remained  without  an  editor.  I 
suppose  that  in  all  his  life  Mr.  Labouchere  never  did  a  more 
extraordinary  thing  than  this,  judging  by  what  would  be 
considered  ordinary  conduct  for  a  man  in  his  position  in  such 
a  case.  Yet  surely  the  extraordinary  course  which  he  took 
is  an  example  of  the  way  in  which  his  habit  of  looking  at 
the  essential  things  in  life,  and  snapping  his  fingers  at  con- 
ventions and  traditions,  guided  him  to  the  best  possible 
solution  of  a  serious  difficulty.  He  regarded  it  as  essential 
that  Voules  should  not  be  formally  and  officially  the  man 
in  control  of  the  paper.  He  regarded  it  as  equally  essential 
— but  how  few  would  have  done  so! — that  the  man  who  had 
served  him  so  well  and  honourably  for  five-and-twenty 
years  should  not  be  cast  out  to  end  his  days  in  disgrace.  So 
he  said:  "  I  will  have  no  editor  in  future.  I  see  no  necessity 


MR.  LABOUCHERE  AS  A  JOURNALIST        511 

for  it.  Manage  as  best  you  can  without  one!"  Is  not  this 
really  a  stroke  of  genius,  seeing  that  it  is  a  solution  of  the 
difficulty  that  no  one  else  would  ever  have  dreamed  of,  that 
it  is  so  perfectly  simple,  and  that  it  effected  everything  that 
was  really  necessary?  It  also  becomes  easier,  I  think,  after 
this  to  understand  how  Mr.  Labouchere  had  previously 
allowed  his  paper  to  go  on  for  about  seventeen  years  under 
the  editorship  of  its  business  "manager"  without  suspecting 
that  there  was  anything  anomalous  in  this  arrangement  until 
his  manager  surprised  him  by  protesting  against  it. 

I  feel  that  I  cannot  close  this  narrative  of  Mr.  Labou- 
chere's  relations  with  Truth  without  a  reference  to  the 
termination  of  his  sole  proprietorship  of  that  journal,  for  it 
was  very  characteristic  of  him.  Slight  as  was  the  interest 
that  he  evinced  in  his  property  in  his  later  years,  he  never 
seemed  desirous  of  parting  with  it,  naming  a  prohibitive  price 
when  any  one  offered  to  buy  it,  as  many  did,  including 
Horace  Voules.  When,  after  poor  Voules's  death  in  1909, 
I  myself  pressed  him  to  turn  his  proprietorship  into  a  com- 
pany, he  politely  but  firmly  declined,  observing  that  he 
distrusted  boards,  and  had  always  believed  in  finding  a  man 
who  can  manage  your  business  for  you  and  leaving  him  to  do 
it.  Undoubtedly  that  was  the  principle  on  which  he  had 
conducted  many  of  his  affairs.  But  in  the  end  I  ventured  to 
suggest  to  him  that  it  would  be  a  great  kindness  to  me  and 
other  members  of  his  staff,  who  had  been  connected  with 
the  paper  for  many  years,  if  he  could  see  his  way  to  put  the 
proprietorship  on  a  permanent  footing,  and  save  us  from  the 
possible  results  of  a  sale  of  the  paper  to  the  first  bidder  in 
the  event  of  his  predeceasing  us.  His  response  was  instan- 
taneous and  most  sympathetic.  He  practically  offered  me 
an  option  on  the  paper  at  half  the  price  he  had  asked  Voules 
a  few  years  previously,  and  interested  himself  warmly  in 
explaining  to  me  how  I  was  to  turn  this  opportunity  to  the 
best  advantage.  When  the  proposed  deal  did  not  promise  to 
come  off  very  speedily,  he  finally  said  that  he  would  waive 


512  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

his  objections  to  converting  himself  into  a  mere  shareholder, 
and  leave  us  to  form  a  company,  taking  from  him  or  placing 
with  others  such  shares  as  we  could.  So  ended  Mr.  Labou- 
chere's  proprietorship  of  Truth — in  an  act  of  pure  kindness  of 
heart.  It  is  an  exact  parallel  to  his  easy-going  abdication 
of  the  editorship  at  the  first  hint  from  Voules  that  the  exist- 
ing position  was  rather  hard  on  him. 

Mr.  Labouchere  was  a  man  of  most  extraordinary  char- 
acter. "He  was  an  extraordinary  person!"  is  the  exclama- 
tion that  one  has  heard  a  hundred  times  rising  involuntarily 
to  the  lips  of  those  who  knew  him  well.  The  story  of  his 
connection  with  journalism  is  an  extraordinary  one,  but  as 
loosely  sketched  in  the  foregoing  reminiscences  it  can  give 
but  an  inadequate  impression  of  what  was  most  remarkable 
about  him.  This  would  be  equally  true  of  any  mere  narra- 
tive of  the  events  of  his  career,  or  any  collection  of  his  dis- 
jointed utterances.  In  writing  of  him  one  is  always  in 
danger  of  conveying  the  impression  that  he  was  a  mere 
eccentric  or  freak.  In  reality  he  was  something  very  much 
more.  Among  other  things  he  was  one  of  the  most  prolific 
and  spontaneous  writers  that  ever  lived,  and  everything  that 
he  wrote,  however  trivial  the  subject,  bore  some  mark  of 
his  own  unique  personality.  His  love  of  his  pen  was  perhaps 
his  most  vital  characteristic ;  it  resembled,  indeed,  his  love  of 
his  cigarette,  and  the  two  affections  always  came  into  play 
simultaneously.  He  would  take  up  a  pen  anywhere,  and 
commit  his  thoughts  to  paper  without  regard  to  external 
circumstances — during  a  debate  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
during  a  children's  party  in  Old  Palace  Yard,  in  a  public 
room  of  an  hotel.  When  abroad  on  his  holidays  he  used  to 
write  contributions  to  Truth  as  regularly  as  if  he  were  under 
contract  to  supply  so  much  copy  each  week — evidently 
writing  purely  as  a  pleasure.  Probably  Mr.  Labouchere  is 
the  only  man  who  ever  wrote  for  publication,  systematically 
and  voluminously,  without  ever  being  paid  for  what  he 
wrote.  Indirectly,  of  course,  as  the  proprietor  of  Truth, 


MR.  LABOUCHERE  AS  A  JOURNALIST        513 

he  profited  by  his  contributions  to  his  own  paper;  but 
nobody  who  knew  him  will  suppose  that  this  consideration 
ever  presented  itself  to  him  as  a  motive  for  exertion.  Neither 
was  he  actuated  by  that  common  weakness,  love  of  seeing 
himself  in  print.  On  the  contrary,  what  became  of  anything 
he  wrote  after  he  had  produced  it  was  a  matter  of  profound 
indifference  to  him.  "I  am  the  only  person,  I  believe,  on 
the  Press, "  he  wrote  in  his  later  days,  in  answer  to  an  apology 
for  consigning  to  oblivion  a  rather  long-winded  article 
forwarded  from  Florence,  "who  does  not  care  in  the  least 
whether  his  lucubrations  do  or  do  not  appear  in  print." 
He  wrote  to  me  many  times  in  the  same  strain,  and  it  was 
no  doubt  literally  true.  Frequently  he  would  write  an 
article  and  omit  to  post  it ;  sometimes  he  mislaid  it  perman- 
ently, sometimes  he  accidentally  destroyed  it.  Sometimes 
he  would  send  a  second  edition  of  an  article  already  received 
and  printed,  explaining  that  he  could  not  remember  whether 
he  had  posted  the  first  edition  or  torn  it  up  by  mistake. 
From  long  experience  of  him,  I  doubt  whether  he  ever  looked 
at  anything  he  had  written  after  it  was  printed  and  pub- 
lished, unless  some  accidental  circumstance  gave  him  occa- 
sion to  refer  to  it. 

No  man  who  ever  wrote  more  strikingly  exemplified  the 
aphorism  "le  style  c'est  rhomme."  His  style  was  entirely 
his  own — a  pure,  spontaneous  growth,  neither  derived  from 
reading,  nor  formed  by  conscious  effort.  It  reflected  as 
vividly  as  his  conversation  the  characteristics  of  his  intellect, 
his  lucidity  of  thought  and  expression,  his  quick  apprehension, 
his  distaste  for  display,  his  unconventional  habit  of  mind,  his 
dry  humour,  his  naive  wit.  A  very  good  judge,  and  an  old 
acquaintance  in  Parliament,  writing  of  him  in  the  Saturday 
Review  after  his  death,  said  that  "Mr.  Labouchere's  prose 
was  Voltairian."  It  was  Voltairian  because  his  mind  was 
Voltairian,  and  because  he  reproduced  on  paper,  instinctively 
and  without  effort,  exactly  what  was  in  his  mind.  But  it  is 
out  of  place  to  speak  of  anything  that  Mr.  Labouchere  did 

33 


514  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

in  terms  of  uncritical  eulogy.  On  the  technical  side  Mr. 
Labouchere's  literary  work  was  marred  by  the  failings  which 
beset  him  in  everything  he  undertook — his  repugnance  to 
"taking  trouble,"  and  his  supreme  indifference.  Although 
he  would  overhaul  his  proof  mercilessly,  and  go  on  doing  it 
as  often  as  a  proof  was  submitted  to  him,  the  process  was 
generally  that  of  expanding  and  rewriting,  rarely  of  touching 
up  and  improving  what  he  had  written.  He  thought  as 
little  about  "polishing  up "  a  sentence  for  the  sake  of  literary 
effect  as  of  brushing  his  hat  before  he  went  for  a  walk.  The 
consequence  was  that  the  inevitable  blemishes  in  the  work 
of  a  man  who  wrote  so  fluently,  but  never  had  the  patience 
to  read  and  correct  his  own  manuscript,  constantly  made 
their  appearance  in  print.  No  one  who  reads  his  work, 
knowing  the  way  it  was  done,  can  doubt  that  he  had  it  in 
him  to  enrich  English  literature  with  veritable  masterpieces. 
It  was  the  will  that  he  lacked,  not  the  ability,  and  so  it  was 
with  nearly  everything  he  undertook. 

Mr.  Labouchere  was  a  man  of  genius — genius  real, 
original,  and  many-sided.  The  signs  of  it  are  evident  in 
almost  everything  he  did,  including  his  mistakes  and  his 
eccentricities.  But  he  had  the  misfortune  to  be  born  very 
rich,  and  if  he  was  not  by  nature  indolent  he  acquired  an  in- 
dolent habit  of  mind  through  never  being  under  the  necessity 
of  exerting  his  powers  to  their  full  capacity.  His  genius 
was  of  the  critical,  not  the  creative  order,  and  this  also 
contributed  to  his  forming  a  view  of  life  inconsistent  with 
strenuous  exertion,  for  it  led  him  to  despise  nearly  everything 
that  men  ordinarily  prize,  success  in  all  its  shapes  included. 
During  all  the  time  I  knew  him,  his  attitude  towards  life 
was  that  of  a  man  playing  a  game,  interested  in  it  certainly, 
but  only  for  the  amusement  it  afforded  him.  It  is  worthy  of 
note  that  he  confesses  to  having  been  in  youth  an  inveterate 
gambler,  and  having  given  up  play  because  he  found  that  it 
was  acquiring  too  much  hold  over  him.  To  be  interested  in 
everything,  but  too  much  interested  in  nothing,  was  a  cardi- 


MR.  LABOUCHERE  AS  A  JOURNALIST        515 

nal  principle  of  his  life.  Few  men  have  ever  incurred  more 
obloquy,  and  many  worthy  people  regarded  him  with  aver- 
sion; but  it  was  only  from  misunderstanding  or  lack  of 
knowledge.  To  this  he  himself  contributed  by  his  perverse 
habit  of  self-depreciation,  his  indifference  to  the  opinions  of 
his  fellow-men,  and  the  amusement  he  found  in  mystifying 
them.  It  is  absurd  to  put  him  on  a  pedestal — a  position 
which  he  never  allowed  any  one  else,  and  which  he  took  good 
care  to  show  he  never  desired  for  himself.  But  it  was 
impossible  to  be  much  in  contact  with  him  without  appre- 
ciating that  he  was  a  being  of  a  rare  order  of  intellect, 
with  something  in  him  that  placed  him  above  the  ordinary 
failings  and  foibles  of  humanity,  however  much  he  might 
try  to  magnify  his  own.  It  was  my  privilege  to  know  him 
pretty  closely  for  over  thirty  years,  and  very  intimately  for 
the  last  ten.  Though  he  did  in  that  time  many  things  that 
one  would  have  wished  he  had  not  done,  and  said  many  that 
would  have  been  better  left  unsaid,  I  can  look  back  to  him 
now  only  with  admiration  for  his  wisdom  and  his  wit,  and 
affection  for  his  drolleries  and  his  indiscretions,  no  less  than 
for  his  many  virtues. 

There  comes  back  to  me  the  last  time  I  sat  with  him,  by 
the  side  of  the  lake  at  Cadennabia.  "  Let  us  get  away  from 
this  beastly  band, "  he  had  said,  in  the  hall  of  the  hotel  after 
dinner,  "one  can't  hear  oneself  speak."  So  we  sat  down 
outside,  and  he  rambled  on:  "I  can't  think  why  people 
want  bands  when  they  come  here.  Wonderful  place  this 
for  stars!  What  I  like  about  it  is  that  you  can  see  them  in 
the  lake  without  craning  your  neck.  I  sit  here  and  follow 
Bacon's  advice:  look  at  the  stars  in  the  pond  instead  of  in 
the  sky,  and  you  won't  tumble  into  the  pond.  There  was  a 
Greek  named  Pythagoras — or  some  ass  at  any  rate — who 
comforted  himself  with  the  notion  that  in  the  future  state 
he  would  be  able  to  hear  the  music  of  the  spheres.  Who 
wants  to  hear  the  music  of  the  spheres?  Bother  that  band! 
What  strikes  me  most  about  the  stars  is  that  they  do  their 


5i6  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

work  so  quietly.  Pythagoras  picked  up  his  notions  in  the 
East — probably  from  the  Jews.  They  imagined  angels  with 
harps  and  a  perpetual  concert  in  heaven.  Good  God! 
Think  of  having  to  sit  at  a  concert  for  all  eternity !  Wouldn't 
you  pray  to  be  allowed  to  go  to  hell?  The  only  reason  that 
I  can  see  for  desiring  immortality  would  be  the  chance  of 
meeting  Pythagoras  and  the  other  asses,  and  having  a  few 
words  with  them.  Now  Socrates  was  not  an  ass.  He  was 
for  banishing  musicians  from  his  republic.  No  doubt  he 
saw  that  this  would  get  him  a  lot  of  republican  votes. 
Gladstone  once  said  to  me— — " 

And  then  he  dropped  off  to  sleep.  He  was  beginning  by 
that  time  to  doze  at  odd  times,  though  all  his  life  it  was 
characteristic  of  him  not  to  be  able  to  take  his  sleep  like  an 
ordinary  mortal.  And  not  long  after  I  left  him  sitting  there 
by  the  lake,  sleep  finally  overcame  him,  and  he  passed  out 
into  the  night,  to  learn  more  of  the  silence  of  the  stars,  and 
to  have  it  out,  if  possible,  with  Pythagoras. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
THE  CLOSING  YEARS 

UPON  only  one  occasion  in  his  life  could  a  charge  of 
Jingoism  have  been  brought  against  Mr.  Labouchere. 
The  last  long  speech  he  made  in  the  House  of  Commons  was 
against  the  second  reading  of  the  Women's  Enfranchisement 
Bill,  in  which  he  said  that  he  objected  to  women  being  given 
the  vote  because  they  could  not  be  soldiers;  in  short,  because 
their  physical  limitations  prevented  them  from  being  able  to 
take  a  place  in  the  battlefield.  A  member  pointed  out  that 
the  speaker  himself  was  not  a  military  man.  With  passion 
he  replied  that,  whereas  there  was  not  a  man  alive  who  could 
not  fight,  and,  if  necessary,  swim  through  seas  of  gore  to 
protect  his  native  land,  the  other  sex  were  incapable  of 
putting  up  with  the  hardships  and  privation  involved  in 
warfare. ' 

It  was  in  the  third  session  of  Mr.  Balfour's  Parliament 
that  Mr.  Labouchere  made  his  last  speech  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  He  was  nearly  seventy-four  years  old,  and  had 
been  hankering  for  some  time  after  the  delights  of  a  reposeful 
old  age  in  the  retirement  of  the  beautiful  villa  he  had  bought 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Florence  four  years  before.  Sir 
Henry  Campbell  Bannerman  had  written  to  him  in  the  pre- 
vious December,  when  a  rumour  of  his  intended  retirement 
had  reached  him:  "I  hope  you  are  not  really  thinking  of 
breaking  off  with  Parliament,  though  I  frankly  say  it  is  what 

1  May  12,  1905. 

5'7 


518  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

I  should  do  if  I  could,  who  have  the  advantage  of  a  year  or 
two  over  you,  but  I  think  we  old  stagers  with  sound  views 
are  wanted  to  steady  the  new-century  gentlemen  by  a  little 
of  our  early  Victorian  wisdom."  But  Mr.  Labouchere  was 
wise  enough  to  know  how  dull  it  would  be  to  exist  in  a  modern 
Parliament  as  almost  the  only  survivor  of  the  grand  old  Vic- 
torian Radical  party,  whose  sympathies  and  ideals,  the 
policy  of  the  Labour  members  alone  resembled,  in  the  remot- 
est degree.  His  mind  was  made  up,  but  he  kept  his  own 
counsel,  except  to  his  leader,  because,  as  he  wrote  to  Mr. 
Robert  Bennett  at  the  time  of  his  retirement,  a  man  who  is 
known  not  to  be  going  to  stand  again  becomes  a  nonentity 
in  Parliament. 

In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Edward  Thornton,  the  month  before 
his  withdrawal  from  public  life,  he  gave  his  view  of  the 
Parliamentary  situation  at  that  time: 

Just  now  politics  are  dead.  When  Parliament  meets,  the 
Liberals  will  try  to  put  the  Government  in  a  majority  during  the 
session,  and  Balfour  will  try  to  carry  on  to  the  end  of  it.  There 
seems  no  reason  why  he  should  be  beaten,  provided  that  he  can 
keep  his  men  in  the  House.  But  this  is  also  our  difficulty.  The 
individual  M.  P.  never  wants  an  election.  .  .  .  Campbell 
Bannerman  is  now  alsolutely  certain  to  be  the  next  Premier  unless 
his  health  breaks  down.  All  that  you  see  about  this  or  that  man 
in  the  Cabinet  is  only  intelligent  anticipation.  He  is  not  dejure 
on  the  succession  to  the  Premiership,  there  are  no  consultations, 
and  he  has  a  wholesome  distrust  of  his  Front  Bench  friends  who 
almost  all  have  intrigued  against  him.  I  know  him  intimately, 
and  he  talks  to  me  pretty  freely,  for  I  have  expressed  to  him  that 
I  want  nothing.  At  seventy-four  a  man  is  a  fool  to  be  a  Minister. 

The  news  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  retirement  came  as  a 
surprise  to  most  of  the  world.  The  first  intimation  to  the 
public  was  his  letter  to  the  Liberal  electors  of  Northampton 
announcing  his  decision.  It  was  written  from  Florence,  and 
dated  December  14,  1905.  It  ran  as  follows: 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS  519 

GENTLEMEN, — I  have  been  elected  by  a  majority  of  you  to 
represent  you  in  six  Parliaments.  I  have  received  no  intimation 
from  any  of  the  Radicals,  to  whose  votes  I  have  owed  my  having 
been  your  member  for  twenty-five  years,  that  they  disapprove 
of  my  Parliamentary  action  whilst  serving  them,  or  that  they  do 
not  wish  me  to  be  one  of  their  candidates  at  the  next  general 
election.  Were  I,  therefore,  to  come  forward  again  as  a  candidate 
there  is  little  doubt  that  I  should  be  one  of  your  representatives 
in  a  seventh  Parliament.  But  I  am  now  seventy-four  years  old. 
At  that  age  a  man  is  neither  so  strong  nor  active  as  he  once  was, 
and  any  one  who  wishes  to  represent  efficiently  a  large  and 
important  constituency  like  yours  in  Parliament  should  be 
strong  in  wind  and  limb.  I  feel  therefore  that  I  ought  not  to 
take  advantage  of  your  consideration  towards  me  in  a  matter 
so  vital  to  you  in  order  to  lag  superfluous  on  the  political  stage. 

I  have  delayed  until  now  making  this  announcement  because 
it  was  impossible  to  know  when  a  general  election  would  take 
place,  and  I  thought  that  it  would  be  more  convenient  to  you 
for  me  to  wait  until  the  date  of  the  election  was  settled  and  n  2ar 
at  hand.  I  do  not  think  that  my  withdrawal  will  affect  the 
position  of  parties  in  Northampton.  In  Dr.  Shipman  you  have 
a  member  whose  Parliamentary  action  has  been  in  accord  with 
the  pledges  that  have  already  secured  his  return,  and  on  whose 
personal  worth  all  are  agreed.  You  will  have  no  difficulty  in 
finding  a  man  to  replace  me,  as  eager  to  promote  the  cause  of 
democracy  as  I  am,  and  who  will  be  better  able  to  fight  for  the 
cause  than  one  in  the  sere  and  yellow  leaf. 

Mr.  Labouchere  remarked  once,  that  he  had  on  one 
occasion  only  been  asked  by  a  constitutent  for  a  pledge  with 
regard  to  his  Parliamentary  action.  He  had  unhesitatingly 
given  it,  and  been  unflinchingly  true  to  his  word.  The 
elector's  injunction  had  been,  "  Now,  mind,  I  say,  and  keep 
your  hi  on  Joe. "  But  whether  the  story  is  a  slight  exaggera- 
tion of  the  confidence  his  constituents  had  in  him  to  faith- 
fully represent  their  views  at  Westminster  or  not,  it  gives 
elliptically  a  description  of  his  attitude  during  the  twenty-five 
years  he  served  the  electors  of  Northampton.  He  became 


520  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

their  member  as  an  anti-Imperialist,  in  Lord  Beaconsfield's 
interpretation  of  the  term,  and  he  took  his  leave  of  them 
as  an  anti-Imperialist,  in  the  more  modern,  and  what  may 
be  called  "Chamberlain"  sense  of  the  word. 

I  shall  quote  Mr.  T.  P.  O'Connor's  farewell  on  the  occa- 
sion of  his  retirement,  which  he  published  under  the  title  of 
"The  Passing  of  Labby, "  for,  apart  from  its  literary  merit, 
it  is  the  fine  appreciation  of  a  friend  of  many  years'  standing, 
who  knew  the  value  of  Mr.  Labouchere  from  the  social  as 
well  as  the  Parliamentary  and  journalistic  points  of  view: 

There  is  no  old  member  of  the  House  of  Commons  who  will  not 
feel  a  pang  of  personal  regret  at  hearing  that  Labby  is  leaving  that 
Assembly.  No  one  has  a  right  to  criticise  a  man  for  giving  up  an 
active  life  at  seventy-four  years  of  age — he  has  done  his  work. 
But  Labby  had  become  an  almost  essential  part  of  the  House  of 
Commons;  and  there  never  will  be  anybody  who  can  quite  take 
hi?  place  there.  That  extraordinary  combination  of  strong  party 
zeal,  with  a  lurking  desire  to  make  mischief;  the  sardonic  and 
satirical  spirit,  mingled  with  a  certain  fierce,  though  carefully 
concealed  zeal  for  the  public  good;  the  mordant  wit  that  was 
equally  the  delight  of  the  House  and  of  the  smoking  room;  the 
world-wide  and  varied  experience  of  all  life  in  almost  every 
country  and  in  almost  every  form — these  are  the  possessions  of 
but  one  man,  and  his  like  we  shall  never  see  again.  There  are 
two  Labbys.  There  is  the  Labby  who  almost  corrodes  with  his 
bitter  wit,  and  who  seems  to  laugh  at  everything  in  life.  There 
is  the  other  Labby  who  has  strong,  stern  purpose,  who  hates  all 
shams,  all  cruelty,  all  imposture,  all  folly,  and  who  has  made  war 
on  all  these  things  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century.  There 
is  even  a  third  Labby — the  man  who  hates  to  give  pain  even  to 
a  domestic,  and  who  is  laughingly  said  to  have  run  out  of  a  room 
rather  than  face  the  irritated  looks  of  a  maidservant  whom  he 
had  summoned  by  too  vigorous  a  pull  at  the  bell.  One  of  the 
reasons  of  the  popularity  Labby  enjoyed  in  the  House  was  his 
tolerant  amiability.  I  have  seen  him  in  the  smoking  room  in  the 
most  friendly  converse  with  many  a  man  whom  in  previous  years 
he  had  most  fiercely  attacked ;  he  bore  no  ill  will,  and  treated  all 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS  521 

those  encounters  as  demanded  by  business,  and  as  dismissable 
when  the  fight  was  over.  Finally  Labby  was  a  far  straighter, 
far  more  serious,  far  more  effective  politician  than  his  own 
persiflage  would  allow  people  to  think.  With  all  his  light  wit, 
there  was  something  stern  and  rigid  in  the  man,  as  you  could  see 
from  the  powerful  mouth,  with  the  full  compressed  lips.  He  was 
perfectly  honest  in  his  hatred  of  extravagance,  pretence,  vain- 
glory. He  preferred  riding  in  a  tramcar  to  riding  in  a  coach  and 
four.  He  dressed  so  shabbily  sometimes  that  his  counsel  used 
to  have  to  remonstrate  with  him  when  he  had  to  answer  a  charge 
of  libel.  He  was  an  ascetic  in  eating.  Once  he  dined  quite 
comfortably,  when  he  was  electioneering,  on  ham  sandwiches  with 
sponge-cake  for  bread.  He  rarely,  if  ever,  tasted  wine;  he 
smoked  incessantly  the  poorest  and  cheapest  cigarettes.  As  he 
was  in  private,  so  he  was  in  public  life.  He  derided  all  great 
Imperial  designs  as  snobbery  and  extravagance;  he  hated  am- 
bition— in  short,  he  was  in  both  his  personal  habits  and  his 
public  opinions,  a  true  devotee  of  the  simple  life.  He  did  im- 
mense service  to  his  party  in  his  time.  During  the  heat  of  the 
Home  Rule  controversy  he  spoke  in  scores  of  towns;  took 
journeys  by  night  and  by  day,  never  spared  himself  exertion, 
never  complained  of  discomfort;  in  his  laughing  air,  with  his 
assumed  air  of  languor,  he  was  a  strenuous,  manly,  courageous 
fighter.  And  he  never  changed,  he  never  concealed,  he  never 
explained  away  his  opinion  upon  anything.  And  so  I  bid  him 
with  regret  farewell  from  a  scene  where  he  was  a  model  of  honest 
good  faith  and  courage. ' 

So  Labby  goes!  [mourned  the  Morning  Post].  What  Parlia- 
ment and  public  life  will  be  without  him,  I  hate  to  think.  The 
letter  of  cheery  regrets  to  his  Northampton  constituents  sub- 
tracts the  sauce  piquante  from  the  Parliamentary  dish.  The 
House  has  long  counted  Labby  as  the  last  of  its  originals,  has 
prized  him  as  a  refreshing  relish,  has  looked  to  him  for  the  un- 
expected flavour.  All  strangers  would  ask  inevitably  to  have 
him  pointed  out,  and  the  House  would  fill  at  once  when  the  word 
went  round  the  corridors  and  lobbies  and  smoking  rooms  that 
Labby  was  "up"  and  holding  forth  from  his  customary  corner 

1  M.A.P.,  Dec.  30,  1905. 


522  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

seat  below  the  gangway — the  best  of  all  positions  from  which  to 
address  the  House.  So  too  the  smoking  room  became  suddenly 
crowded  when  Labby  was  to  be  seen  standing  there  with  back 
to  fireplace,  the  eternal  cigarette  between  his  lips,  ready  for  talk. 
It  gives  a  peculiar  pang  to  realise  that  he  will  be  seen  there  no 
more.  But  the  pang  is  lessened  when  one  finds  Labby — Labby 
of  all  men — seriously  pleading  old  age  as  a  ground  for  his  retire- 
ment. It  sounds  like  one  of  his  little  jokes,  or,  perhaps,  it  is  a 
genuine  case  of  hallucination.  Labby  had  possibly  a  touch  of 
old  age  at  twenty,  but  he  had  also  the  sense  to  outgrow  it.  Since 
then  he  has  never  relapsed,  and  now  in  the  seventy-fifth  year  of 
his  youth,  and  with  a  pen  several  years  younger,  it  is  a  vain  and 
commonplace  and  un-Labbyish  thing  to  pretend  that  youth  and 
he  are  no  longer  "housemates  still."  An  unbelieving  world  will 
not  accept  that  plea .  .  .  .  I  daresay  that,  half  a  century  ago, 
Labby  was,  not  unlike  the  wise  youth  Adrian  in  Meredith's 
Richard  Feverel,  quite  unnaturally  cool  and  quizzical,  long-headed 
and  non-moral,  but  an  Adrian  humanised  by  something  of  the 
Bohemian  spirit  and  a  turn  for  careless  .pleasuring.  And  in  those 
days,  no  doubt — his  Eton  and  Cambridge  days — he  struck  his 
contemporaries  as  really  old.  But  no  one,  for  fifty  years,  has 
ever  accused  him  of  not  having  overcome  his  early  weakness ; 
and  it  was  the  very  last  charge  I  ever  expected  to  hear  Labby 
prefer  against  himself. x 

There  was  something  about  Mr.  Labouchere's  personal- 
ity, apart  from  his  deeds  and  thoughts,  which  appealed  almost 
irresistibly  to  the  affectionate  sympathies  of  all  mankind. 
To  find  an  ill-natured  comment  in  any  of  the  articles  that 
were  published  about  him  in  the  press  when  he  left  the  House 
of  Commons  is  so  difficult  that,  were  such  a  one  to  be 
recorded  in  this  volume,  it  would  give  its  author  an  almost 
unenviable  position  of  distinction.  But  in  order  to  be 
perfectly  impartial,  I  shall  merely  quote  the  pleasant  part 
of  the  only  one  I  could  find,  so  that  its  writer  need  not  feel 
that  he  has  been  placed  in  an  out-of-the-way  corner  with  a 
fool's  cap  on  his  head: 

1  Morning  Post,  Dec.  23,  1905. 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS  523 

On  the  whole  Mr.  Labouchere  has  done  a  great  deal  of  good 
in  his  life,  more  good  and  less  evil  than  many  so-called  statesmen. 
He  has  exposed  swindlers  and  moneylenders  and  rotten  compa- 
nies. He  has  obtained  for  the  public  the  right  to  ride,  drive,  and 
walk  up  and  down  Constitution  Hill.  No  victim  of  cruelty 
or  injustice  ever  appealed  to  him  for  a  hearing  in  vain.  Above 
all  he  wrote  an  English  style  of  remarkable  purity,  logic,  and 
humour. 

Letters  of  regretful  farewell  poured  in  upon  Labby  in 
his  Florentine  home,  and  he  possessed  a  kindly  characteristic 
common  to  nearly  all  frankly  unpretentious  human  beings. 
He  loved  his  post.  In  his  cosy  armchair  by  the  fire  he  read 
his  letters  and  enjoyed  them,  and  what  was  more — he 
proceeded  to  answer  them.  No  pre-occupation,  however 
diverting,  ever  prevented  him  from,  at  the  first  available 
moment  sitting  down  to  his  writing-table,  and,  in  the  almost 
illegible  hand  which  he  vainly  tried  to  improve,  penning 
answers  to  his  welcome  correspondents. 

"I  have  been  very  sorry,  but  not  surprised,"  wrote  Sir 
Henry  Campbell  Bannerman  to  him  on  Christmas  Day,  "to 
read  in  the  newspapers  of  your  retirement.  It  is  not  over 
kind  of  you  to  put  it  on  the  ground  of  age,  for  that  hits  some 
of  the  rest  of  us  hard.  For  my  part,  I  confess  my  sentiment 
when  I  read  it  was :  0  si  sic  omnes — and  envy  was  the  prevail- 
ing feeling.  But,  seriously,  we  shall  miss  you  greatly  as  one 
always  ready  to  hoist  the  flag  of  the  old  Liberalism,  as  dis- 
tinguishable from  the  less  stout  and  stalwart  doctrine  which 
passes  for  Liberalism  with  the  moderns. 

"But  now  as  you  are  going  would  you  care  to  have  the 
House  of  Commons  honour  of  Privy  Councillor?  If  so 
it  would  be  to  me  a  genuine  pleasure  to  be  the  channel  of 
conveying  it.  You  ought  to  have  had  it  long  ago.  I  may 
add  that  in  the  highest  quarter  gratification  would  be  felt- 
I  have  taken  soundings.  I  think  we  have  done  and  are  doing 
pretty  well.  The  Government  are  pretty  well  the  pick  of 
the  basket,  though  there  are  some  good  men  left  out,  and  I 


524  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

think  we  can  make  it  a  change  of  policy  and  not  a  mere 
change  of  men.  All  seasonable  wishes  to  you  and  yours.— 
Yours  always, 

"H.C.B." 

"Knowing  you  to  be  a  wise  man,"  wrote  Lord  Selby, 
who  had  been  Speaker  of  the  House  in  three  of  the  six 
Parliaments  of  which  Mr.  Labouchere  had  been  a  member, 
"  I  was  not  surprised  to  see  that  you  had  made  up  your  mind 
to  eschew  Westminster,  and  enjoy  Florence  and  its  climate, 
but  if  I  were  still  in  the  Chair  I  should  miss  you  in  the  next 
Parliament,  and  I  am  sure  the  smoking-room  will  be  a  forlorn 
place  without  you;  and  I  do  not  see  how  the  loss  is  to  be 
repaired,  for  it  takes  a  good  many  years  to  grow  a  plant  of  the 
same  kind.  I  wish  you  and  Mrs.  Labouchere  long  leisure 
and  much  pleasure  in  your  Italian  home,  seasoned  with 
occasional  visits  to  England.  The  election  may  be  said  to 
have  begun  with  Balfour's  speech  at  Leeds,  and  Campbell 
Bannerman's  at  the  Albert  Hall.  ..." 

The  leader  of  the  Irish  party  wrote  from  Dublin: 

"DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — When  writing  the  other  day,  I 
did  not  know  that  you  had  any  idea  of  retiring  from  Parlia- 
ment. I  learned  your  intention  with  deep  regret.  You  have 
been  so  long  one  of  the  truest  friends  of  Ireland  that  you  will 
be  missed  by  us  all,  and  at  a  time  when  we  can  badly  spare 
a  real  friend.  With  heartiest  good  wishes,  and  many  thanks 
for  your  advice  and  assistance  on  so  many  occasions,  I  remain 
very  truly  yours, 

"  J.  E.  REDMOND." 

"  I  have  just  read  your  farewell  to  Northampton, "  wrote 
Sir  Wilfrid  Lawson,  on  December  17,  "and  it  has  troubled 
me.  I  am  going  to  stand  again  for  Cockermouth  (I  am  older 
than  you !)  with  a  fair  chance  of  success,  but,  if  I  win  and 
get  back  to  the  House,  I  shall  feel  that  it  is  not  exactly  the 
same  place  without  you.  I  therefore  just  write  this  to  say 
how  sorry  I  am  to  lose  you.  Certainly  you  have  always  held 
up  bravely  and  ably  the  banner  of  the  Radicalism  in  which 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS  525 

I  believe,  and  it  remains  to  be  seen  whether  we  shall  get  it 
as  well  held  up  in  the  Parliament  which  is  to  be.  Any  way 
those  who  believe  in  Government '  of,  for,  and  by  the  people, ' 
ought  to  be  grateful  to  you  for  your  persistent  preaching  and 
teaching  of  that  doctrine. 

"The  new  Government  promises  well,  but  I  remember  a 
story  on  which  you  trenchantly  commented  in  Truth  some 
years  ago.  When  Lord  Dudley  was  married  it  was  proposed 
in  the  Kidderminster  Corporation  that  they  should  give  him  a 
wedding  present,  on  which  an  old  weaver  rose  and  suggested 
that  it  should  be  postponed  '  till  we  see  how  he  goes  on. ' 

"Well,  I  hope  that  you  will  go  on  well  and  happily  till  the 
end  of  your  days,  and,  meantime,  not  forget  to  give  outside 
help  to  your  old  comrades,  who  for  a  bit  longer  are  grinding 
in  the  Parliamentary  mill." 

Lord  James  of  Hereford  wrote: 

"The  announcement  of  your  departure  from  the  House 
of  Commons  seems  almost  to  affect  me  personally.  I  recall 
a  day  in  the  end  of  August,  1868,  when  you  and  I  and  John 
Stamforth  were  sitting  in  front  of  the  Kursaal  at  Homburg. 
You  and  I  were  discussing  our  relative  chances  in  Middlesex 
and  at  Taunton,  and  then  you  asked  Stamforth  how  he  was 
getting  on  at  Athlone.  "I  am  member  for  Athlone, " 
replied  that  unfortunate  man,  who  afterwards,  as  you  know, 
polled  one  vote. 

"Well,  the  water  has  been  flowing  on  since  then.  You  and 
I  have  seen  a  good  deal  of  political  life,  and  taken  a  fair 
share  in  it.  I  hope  we  have  not  done  much  harm,  but 
Heaven  only  knows.  I  am  very  sorry  that  you  are  not 
continuing  in  the  fight .... 

"I  know  how  little  I  can  do,  for  I  am  three  years  older  than 
you  are — but  the  House  of  Lords  offers  some  opportunities 
for  easy  going  to  an  old  one." 

"  DEAR  LABOUCHERE,  "  wrote  Lord  Edmond  Fitzmaurice, 
— "We  have  enjoyed  sweet  converse  together  in  the  House 
of  Commons  and  in  the  woods  of  Marienbad  on  '  men  and 


526  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

things.'  We  are  both  leaving  the  House  of  Commons  at 
the  same  time,  so  I  send  you  a  word  of  greeting — or  farewell, 
or  by  whatever  other  name  it  may  be  appropriate  to  describe 
these  words.  ...  A  short  Parliament  generally  follows 
a  long  Parliament,  and  I  expect  to  see  this  canon  once 
more  illustrated. " 

"The  New  York  Herald  of  this  morning  announces  your 
appointment  as  a  P.  C.,"  wrote  Sir  Edmund  Monsonfrom 
Paris.  "  I  am  very  glad  that  you  have  received  this  distinc- 
tion, which,  in  my  own  case,  I  have  always  regarded  as  the 
most  acceptable  of  all  that  have  been  bestowed  on  me .  .  .  . 
I  can  quite  understand  your  relinquishing  Parliament,  and 
I  hope  you  may  long  enjoy  the  otium  cum  dignitate  which  no 
place  better  than  Florence  can  supply.  .  .  .  Believe 
me,  always  your  sincere  old  friend, 

"EDMUND  MONSON." 

Lord  Brampton  wrote  on  the  last  day  but  one  of  the 
year:  "I  have  just  received  your  note.  Your  reasons  for 
retirement  from  Parliament  are  unreasonable.  But,  as 
far  as  I  am  concerned,  although  I  have  not  a  word  of  objec- 
tion to  offer,  still  I  remain  sorry.  With  all  my  heart  I 
rejoice  in  to-day's  Times,  and  offer  to  you,  my  right  hon- 
ourable friend,  my  heartiest  congratulations  to  you  and  all 
yours,  and  every  good  wish  for  the  coming  New  Year.  I 
wish  I  could  avail  myself  of  your  invitation  to  Florence, 
but  I  fear  I  have  no  chance,  as  I  am  very  weak  still  and  can 
hardly  hold  a  pen. " 

Only  one  other  letter  must  be  quoted  from  the  friends 
of  Labby's  youth.  Sir  Henry  Lucy  wrote  on  Christmas 
Day: 

"Mv  DEAR  LABOUCHERE, — You  will  find  in  the  forth- 
coming issue  of  Punch  some  reflections  on  'The  Sage  of 
Queen  Anne's  Gate,'  from  the  Diary  of  Toby,  M.  P.  I 
believe  they  echo  the  feeling  of  the  whole  House  of  Commons, 
irrespective  of  party,  at  the  prospect  of  your  withdrawal 
from  the  scene. 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS  527 

" But  why  cut  Westminster  altogether?  There  is  still  the 
House  of  Lords.  If  I  might  behold  you  walking  out  shoulder 
to  shoulder  with  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  to  vote 
4  content '  or  '  not  content '  as  the  case  might  be,  I  should  feel 
I  had  not  lived  in  vain.  .  .  .  With  a  warmth  and  friend- 
ship dating  back  nearly  thirty  years — Eheu!  we  were  col- 
leagues on  the  World  staff  in  1875." 

Toby,  M.  P.,  recalled  in  a  pathetic  little  article  in  Punch 
the  way  Mr.  Gedge  had  tried  to  do  Labby  out  of  his  corner 
seat  below  the  gangway,  where  Sir  Charles  Dilke  had  sat 
beside  him  on  one  side  of  the  House  or  the  other  ever  since 
Mr.  Gladstone's  Parliament  of  1892.  In  order  to  secure  a 
seat  in  the  House,  members  had  to  be  present  at  the  reading 
of  prayers,  during  which  any  one  could  slip  a  card  with  his 
name  upon  it  into  the  back  of  the  place  he  wanted.  Now 
Labby  was  never  at  prayers,  and  yet,  Mr.  Gedge  noticed, 
he  had  always  had  the  same  seat  secured  to  himself  in  the 
orthodox  manner.  Accordingly,  one  day  he  allowed  his 
thoughts  to  wander  whilst  the  House  of  Commons  devotions 
were  proceeding,  and  his  eyes  followed  his  thoughts.  Be- 
tween his  fingers  held  devoutly  before  his  face,  he  peeped, 
and  noticed  Sir  Charles  Dilke,  buried  in  prayer  as  usual. 
Then  he  saw  his  devotion  relax  for  a  moment.  Sir  Charles 
was  slipping  a  card  into  the  back  of  the  seat  which  he  intended 
to  secure  for  himself,  and  Mr.  Gedge  was  horrified  to  see  that 
he  proceeded  to  slip  a  card  with  Labby's  name  upon  it  into 
the  back  of  the  next  one — the  coveted  corner  seat  below  the 
gangway.  Mr.  Gedge  subsequently  drew  the  attention  of 
the  House  to  this  piece  of  underhand  dealing,  but  hon- 
ourable gentlemen  did  not  choose  to  take  any  notice  of 
what  would  clearly  not  have  been  observed,  if  Mr.  Gedge 
had  been  paying  proper  attention  to  his  prayers. 

A  propos  to  the  seating  accommodation  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  it  should  be  remembered  that  as  far  back  as 
1893,  when  the  disgraceful  scrimmage  for  seats  took  place 
at  the  introduction  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  Home  Rule  Bill, 


528  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

Mr.  Labouchere  had  begun  to  agitate  for  a  new  House  of 
Commons  with  seats  for  every  member.  He  explained  to  a 
journalist  at  the  time  his  plan  for  an  ameliorated  House: 

"At  present, "  he  said,  "  a  man  goes  before  a  constituency 
and,  after  a  lot  of  trouble  and  expense,  wins  a  seat — so  it  is 
called.  He  then  comes  up  here  to  Westminster,  and  finds  he 
has  gone  through  only  half  the  preliminaries  necessary  for 
securing  a  seat.  He  has  taken  only  the  first  steps,  which  are 
simply  child's  play  to  what  he  has  yet  to  do.  Getting 
elected  is  simply  nothing  comparatively.  First  I  wanted  an 
octagonal  chamber,"  he  proceeded,  "but  I  find  general 
opinion  will  retain  the  present  form.  So  my  idea  is  to  have 
eight  rows  of  seats  on  each  side  of  the  House,  curving  round 
at  the  end  opposite  to  the  Speaker.  If  each  row  will  seat 
forty-two  members,  you  will  find  that  will  provide  a  seat 
for  the  whole  six  hundred  and  seventy-two.  Then  every 
one  could  retain  his  seat  throughout  the  session.  The 
difficulty  about  the  square  shape  of  the  House  is  that  it  gives 
you  an  equal  number  of  seats  for  each  party  and  the  Govern- 
ment is  generally  in  a  majority.  That  is  why  I  would  run 
the  seats  round  at  one  end — so  that  the  supporters  of  the 
Government  could  have  the  whole  of  one  side,  and  as  far  as 
the  second  gangway  on  the  other.  Having  a  broader  House 
would  necessarily  mean  enlarging  the  Press  and  Strangers' 
Galleries  also.  All  the  members  are  in  favour  of  it,  with  the 
exception  of  the  front  benches.  They  have  got  their  seats 
assured,  so  they  say  that  the  House  is  cosy,  and  to  enlarge  it 
would  force  them  to  pitch  their  voices  higher."  The  jour- 
nalist who  was  interviewing  him  commented  on  the  extreme 
moderation  of  his  designs  for  an  ameliorated  House  of 
Commons.  "Oh,"  remarked  Mr.  Labouchere,  "these  are 
just  the  alterations  we  shall  probably  make.  What  I 
personally  should  have  liked  would  be  to  clear  the  Lords 
out  of  their  House,  which  is  bigger  than  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  install  ourselves  therein."1  Eight  years 

1  Penny  Illustrated  Paper,  Feb.  25,  1893. 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS  529 

later  he  went  to  Vienna,  and  poured  forth  in  Truth  the 
story  of  his  envy  when  he  saw  the  Austrian  House  of 
Deputies : 

I  went  to  see  the  Parliament  House,  and,  after  inspecting  it, 
I  felt  that  I  could  with  pleasure  join  a  mob  to  disinter  the  remains 
of  the  eminent  architect  who  built  the  Palace  at  Westminster 
and  hang  his  bones  on  a  gibbet.  The  Vienna  architect  has 
erected  a  building  which  is  Parliament  Architecture.  Everything 
is  adapted  to  the  wants  and  requirements  of  those  who  want  to 
use  it.  The  members  of  each  of  the  two  Chambers  sit  in  a  semi- 
circular room,  and  each  member  has  an  armchair  and  a  desk 
before  him.  The  general  objection  made  to  this  plan  of  a  delib- 
erative room  is  that  it  obliges  members  to  speak  from  a  tribune. 
But  at  Vienna  they  speak  from  their  places,  and,  owing  to  the 
excellent  acoustic  properties  of  the  Chamber,  they  can  be  per- 
fectly heard.  I  went  over  the  place  in  the  company  of  a  priest 
who  was  visiting  it  at  the  same  time.  He  perceived  that  I  was 
an  Englishman,  and  asked  me  how  the  place  compared  with  the 
English  Parliament  House.  "The  members  in  England,"  I 
said,  "sit  in  an  oblong  room,  in  which  there  are  only  places  for 
hah*  their  number."  "But  what  do  the  others  do?"  he  asked. 
"They  do  not  listen  to  the  debates,"  I  replied;  "they  seldom 
know  what  is  under  discussion.  A  bell  rings  and  they  come  in, 
and  are  told  to  vote  as  their  leader  orders  them."  As  a  good 
Radical  I  felt  it  necessary  to  give  a  further  explanation,  so  I 
continued:  "The  majority  of  the  members  are  the  supporters  of 
the  Government ;  it  is  one  of  the  worst  Governments  with  which 
a  country  was  ever  cursed ;  it  is  called  the  '  stupid  party, '  and 
it  is  composed  of  Junkers  and  men  who  have  made  much  money. 
They  want  the  laws  to  be  made  for  their  benefit,  and  not  for  the 
benefit  of  the  poor."  "But  why,"  he  said,  "do  they  have  a 
majority,  for  I  suppose  that  the  poor  have  votes  as  well  as  the 
rich,  and  there  must  be  more  poor  than  rich  in  England?" 
"They  gained  their  election  by  corruption  and  falsehood,"  I 
answered.  "Their  wives  and  their  daughters  went  about  giving 
the  electors  feasts,  and  they  went  about  saying  everywhere  that 
the  Radicals  wanted  to  destroy  the  Empire.  In  this  way  they 

M 


530  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

bought  some  with  gifts,  and  others  they  deceived  with  false- 
hoods. Soon  the  electors  discovered  how  they  had  been  fooled, 
and  for  five  years  they  have  wanted  to  take  away  the  Government 
from  the  '  stupids, '  but,  by  our  laws,  a  Parliament  is  elected  for 
seven  years,  and  the  country  is  still  obliged  to  submit  to  the  dis- 
grace of  having  such  a  Government  for  one  or  perhaps  two  more 
years.  Then  there  will  be  another  election,  and  the  'stupids' 
will  be  in  a  minority,  and  the  Radicals  who  represent  the 
sense  and  intelligence  of  the  country  will  become  the  Govern- 
ment." "And  the  Radicals,"  he  said,  "will,  I  suppose,  make  a 
Chamber  large  enough  to  hold  all  the  members."  "I  am  not 
sure  of  that,"  I  answered.  This  seemed  to  surprise  him,  but  he 
thanked  me  for  having  made  clear  to  him  the  party  differences 
in  England.1 

But  my  story  is  wandering  backwards  instead  of  forwards. 
And  so  stories  usually  do  in  the  City  of  Flowers,  where  the 
present  is  so  full  of  ease  and  pleasure  that  a  man's  mind  is 
free  to  linger  where  it  will,  either  lazily  in  the  middle  ages, 
or  to  stray  with  graceful  discrimination  in  the  bye  paths  of 
memory  to  find  the  savour  again  of  some  of  the  deeds  of  a 
gallant  past.  He  may  choose,  perhaps,  to  grasp  contentedly 
and  almost  without  effort,  the  gifts  of  the  gods  that  lie 
about  in  profusion,  but  he  must  always  remember  that  care 
and  earnestness,  strenuousness  and  ambition  have  no  place 
in  Florence.  It  was  of  course  a  home  after  Mr.  Labouchere's 
own  heart.  He  went  to  London  in  the  January  of  1906 
to  be  sworn  in  as  a  Privy  Councillor,  and,  in  February,  he 
came  back  with  delight  to  his  villa  to  enjoy  the  merry 
continental  train  de  vie  he  had  always  loved. 

Whilst  in  London,  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Edward  Thornton, 
who  was  then  in  India: 

I  did  not,  as  you  see,  stand.     At  seventy-four  one  gets  bored 
even  with  politics.     I  am  only  over  here  for  a  fortnight,  as  I  have 
to  get  sworn  into  the  Privy  Council.     The  Unionists  have  been 
*  Truth,  Sept.  21,  1900. 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS  531 

beaten  badly,  because  they  seem  to  have  gone  out  of  their  way 
to  court  defeat.  One  never  knows  what  may  happen,  but  they 
will  remain  in  a  minority  for  the  next  twenty  years,  if  they  run 
on  Protectionist  lines.  Joe  swaggers  and  has  captured  the 
machine,  and  Balfour  would  do  well  to  fight  him  instead  of  knock- 
ing under  to  him.  The  Chinese  labour  helped  us  greatly.  They 
ought  to  have  known  that  the  old  anti-slavery  feeling  is  still 
strong,  but  they  seem  to  imagine  that  every  one  has  Rand 
shares.  .  .  .  The  really  important  thing  connected  with  the 
election  is  the  rise  of  a  Labour  Party.  I  do  not  think,  however, 
that  there  are  above  six  M.  P.'s  returned  who  are  bona  fide 
and  Socialists,  they  are  all  jealous  of  each  other. 

He  wrote  to  Mr.  Thornton  again  on  March  10: 

I  had  had  enough  of  Parliament,  for  one  gets  bored  with  every- 
thing. ...  I  have  not  the  slightest  notion  what  a  Privy 
Councillor  is,  except  that  I  had  to  take  half  a  dozen  oaths  at  a 
Council,  which  were  mumbled  out  by  some  dignitary,  and  then 
Fletcher  Moulton,  who  was  also  being  sworn  in,  and  I  performed 
a  sort  of  cake  walk  backwards.  I  don't  precisely  know  whither 
we  shall  go  in  the  summer — for  it  is  such  a  relief  to  let  the  day 
take  care  of  the  day.  It  is  lucky  C.  B.  has  so  large  a  majority, 
otherwise  things  would  have  been  difficult  with  the  Labour  lot — 
far  more  difficult  than  with  the  Irish. 

Mr.  Labouchere's  most  regular  correspondent  up  till  the 
time  of  his  death  in  January,  1911,  was  Sir  Charles  Dilke. 
The  friendship  between  them  had  continued  uninterruptedly 
since  1880.  Two  letters  that  Mr.  Labouchere  wrote  to  Sir 
Charles  Dilke  in  1910  have  an  especial  interest,  bearing  as 
they  do  upon  the  problem  that  had  always  interested  Mr. 
Labouchere  so  keenly  throughout  the  whole  of  his  political 
career,  and  which,  in  the  first  twentieth  century  Liberal 
Parliament,  had  assumed  a  new  aspect.  The  first  of  these 
letters  was  written  on  February  1 1 : 

MY  DEAR  DILKE, — What  is  the  Government  going  to  do  in 
regard  to  the  Lords?    I  can  understand  a  one-Chamber  man,  in 


532  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

default  of  getting  directly  what  he  wants,  trying  to  get  it  indirectly, 
by  having  a  sham  Upper  Chamber.  But  if  the  Government  has 
to  appeal  to  the  country  on  a  suspensory  veto,  I  doubt  this  creating 
much  enthusiasm.  If  it  be  carried,  this  suspensory  vote  would, 
of  course,  be  used  by  the  Peers  for  all  that  it  is  worth  when  a 
Liberal  Government  is  in  to  throw  batons  dans  leurs  roues.  I 
should  have  thought,  with  the  experience  of  the  last  Parliament, 
that  it  would  be  realised  that  Peer  obstruction,  cleverly  managed, 
could  reduce  any  Liberal  Government  to  ridicule  and  contempt. 
So  long  as  a  Reform  is  hung  up  by  the  Lords,  the  electors  have 
no  heart  in  further  Liberal  legislation,  which,  in  its  turn,  would 
also  be  hung  up.  A  Party  with  a  H.  of  C.  majority  at  its  back 
cannot  afford  to  be  unable  to  carry  through  its  measures.  Why 
not  go  at  once  for  the  abolition  of  the  H.  of  Peers,  and  its  being 
replaced  by  some  sort  of  an  elected  Upper  Chamber?  Nothing 
is  easier  than  to  contrive  one.  The  basis  would  be  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  U.  S.  Senate  mutatis  mutandis.  It  should  have  only 
one  half  of  the  membership  of  the  H.  of  C.,  and  if  the  two  Houses 
cannot  agree,  then  they  should  sit  and  vote  together  on  the  issue. 
Notwithstanding  the  curious  way  in  which  Senators  are  elected 
in  the  Senate  of  the  U.  S.,  I  never  heard  of  any  serious  proposal 
to  alter  this.  Its  main  strength  is  due  to  its  executive  powers, 
and  this  we  need  not  provide  for  in  our  Senate.  With  any 
reasonable  plan  of  election,  and  the  members  reduced  to  about 
300,  it  is  odds  against  there  ever  being  a  majority  of  one  Party 
of  above  40  or  50.  No  Government  at  present  can  get  on 
long  without  a  certain  majority  of  slaves  of  more  than  this  in 
the  Commons,  so  the  Commons  would  always  get  their  way.  I 
have  been  at  times  a  President  of  and  a  member  of  several 
Abolition  of  Lords  Associations,  and  have  advocated  abolition 
in  thousands  of  speeches  in  the  country.  The  feeling  was 
generally  against  hereditary  Legislators,  for  this  comes  home  to  all 
as  an  absurd  abuse.  If  I  were  in  the  House  I  would  move  an 
amendment  on  the  Address  against  hereditary  Legislators,  and 
the  vast  majority  of  the  Government  supporters  would  vote  for 
it,  as  they  would  most  of  them  be  afraid  of  their  electors.  What 
surprises  me  is  that  the  Unionists  do  not  counter  the  plans  of  the 
Government  by  many  such  an  amendment.  They  are  sacrificing 
what  is  their  interest  to  a  lot  of  obscure  Peers,  who  are  of  no 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS  533 

importance.  As  for  the  House  of  Lords,  with  only  a  suspensory 
veto,  it  is  worthless  to  them,  except  for  tactical  obstruction  in 
order  to  discredit  a  Liberal  Government. 

It  is  rather  curious  that  if  the  H.  of  C.  reflects  the  opinions 
of  the  country  there  is  a  majority  for  Tariff  Reform,  as  all  the 
National  Jtf.  P.'s  are  Protectionists.  As  it  is,  they  will  find  it 
difficult  to  vote  for  the  Budget,  with  O'Brien  painting  Ireland 
red  against  it.  He  is  a  power  in  Ireland,  and  Redmond  is 
perfectly  aware  of  it.  Anyhow  the  manoeuvring  in  the  H.  of  C. 
and  the  Debates  will  be  amusing.  There  will  be  difficulties  with 
the  Labour  men,  headed  by  Keir  Hardie.  If  I  were  the  Unionists 
I  would  buy  him. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

The  second  was  written  on  November  17,  and  ran  as 
follows : 

MY  DEAR  DILKE, —  .  .  .  It  is  a  curious  thing  that  in  the 
discussions  about  Home  Rule  all  round,  no  one  has  pointed  out 
that  in  the  German  Empire  Bavaria  occupies  a  peculiar  position. 
It  has  far  more  independent  rights  than  any  other  State.  It  was 
only  on  these  terms  that  it  came  into  the  Empire,  for  there  is  no 
great  love  lost  between  the  Prussians  and  the  Bavarians.  Yet 
it  sends  its  quota  of  representatives  to  the  Reichsrath.  Therefore 
there  seems  to  me  no  particular  reason  why,  if  there  be  Home 
Rule  all  round,  the  position  of  Ireland  should  not  be  that  of 
Bavaria. 

I  confess  that  I  do  not  think  much  of  the  Government  pro- 
posal in  regard  to  the  veto.  It  seems  to  me  a  stupid  arrangement. 
The  Upper  Chamber  is  a  fifth  wheel  on  the  coach  which  only  can 
make  itself  a  nuisance  by  persistent  obstruction,  which  in  two 
years  is  swept  aside  automatically.  My  experience  in  going  to 
lots  of  anti-Lords  Meetings  led  me  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
country  hates  an  Upper  Chamber  on  hereditary  lines,  but  does 
not  quite  believe  in  a  Single  Chamber  which  is  absolute  master. 
Why  does  no  one  propose  to  "  scrap  "  the  H.  of  L.  and  to  have  an 
elected  Upper  House,  one-third  of  whose  members  are  renewed 
by  election  every  two  years,  or  some  such  period?  This  would 
be  on  the  lines  of  the  U.S.  Senate,  only  with  a  popular  franchise, 


534  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

instead  of  the  strangely  illogical  one  of  the  U.S.  Such  an  Upper 
Chamber  would  probably  be  conservative  in  the  real,  and  not  the 
party  sense  of  the  word,  and  yet  command  respect.  It  would 
rarely  act  except  when  the  decision  of  the  H.  of  C.  was  influenced 
by  a  small  minority,  threatening  to  turn  the  Government  out  if 
it  did  not  knock  under  to  it.  Were  the  Unionists  to  come  forward 
with  such  a  scheme,  they  might  very  probably  get  a  majority.— 
Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

After  Sir  Charles  Dilke's  death,  Mr.  Labouchere  wrote  the 
following  interesting  letter  to  Lord  Channing,  dated  Feb.  18 : 

DEAR  CHANNING, — No,  I  am  not  writing  any  memoirs.  I 
shall  find  it  more  agreeable  to  read  yours  than  to  do  so.  ... 
I  knew  him  (Dilke)  very  well  since  his  start  in  politics.  When 
in  the  House,  he  was  the  only  man  well  up,  particularly  in 
domestic  legislature,  and,  really,  it  is  thanks  to  him  that  many 
useful  measures  were  passed.  In  explaining  them,  however,  he 
was  too  apt  to  lose  himself  in  minor  details.  In  foreign  politics 
he  never  clearly  knew  what  he  wanted,  and  he  was  given  to 
believe  in  mares'  nests  which  he  thought  he  had  picked  up 
abroad.  .  .  .  He  fancied  that  he  would  be  able  to  become 
the  leader  of  the  Labour  M.  P.'s.  They  were  ready  to 
profit  by  his  speeches,  but  it  soon  became  clear  that  they 
would  only  have  a  Labour  M.  P.  for  their  leader.  We  started 
a  sort  of  Labour  Party  with  a  Whip.  But  they  came  to  me 
and  said  that  it  must  be  understood  that  he  was  not  to  be 
either  President  or  Chairman.  In  the  main  this  was  due  to 
jealousy  of  him.  ...  I  did  all  that  I  could  with  Campbell 
Bannerman  for  him  to  be  in  the  Cabinet.  Campbell  Bannerman 
hesitated.  Then  Morley  made  a  speech  asserting  that  the 
Liberals  would  not  be  satisfied  unless  he  was  included.  At  once 
the  Bishop  of  Rochester  and  a  head  dissenter  (I  think  it  was 
Clifford)  published  letters  protesting.  Campbell  Bannerman 
then  pointed  to  these  letters,  and  said  that  we  should  have  a 
split  in  the  party  if  he  were  in  the  Cabinet.  Personally,  I  quite 
agree  with  you  as  to  his  ostracism  from  office,  but  you  know 
what  the  English  are,  and  particularly  the  dissenters.  .  .  . 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS  535 

Why  did  you  resign  your  seat  ?  It  was  a  perfectly  safe  one. 
I  resigned  because  I  had  got  to  an  age,  when  I  got  tired  out  at 
a  long  sitting.  It  is  curious  I  was  with  Campbell  Bannerman 
and  his  wife  and  mine.  She  wanted  him  to  give  it  up,  as  his 
doctor  had  told  him  that  he  ought  to.  I  urged  him  to  go  on.  He 
said  that  this  was  odd  advice,  when  I  had  said  that  I  should 
do  so,  and  he  was  younger  than  I  was.  I  replied  that  it  was 
worth  taking  risks  to  be  Prime  Minister,  but  not  for  anything 
else.  And  he  is  dead  and  I  alive.  .  .  . 

If  ever  you  want  to  rest  calmly  you  must  come  down  here 
and  see  me.  I  have  a  big  villa  close  to  Florence,  and  live  a 
vegetable  existence. — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

A  great  grief  befell  Mr.  Labouchere  in  1910.  He  and 
Mrs.  Labouchere  had  been  spending  the  summer  as  usual  at 
Villa  d'Este  and  Cadenabbia,  and  had  returned  to  Florence 
in  the  early  days  of  October.  Never  had  Mrs.  Labouchere 
appeared  to  be  in  better  health  and  spirits.  On  the  evening 
of  the  3Oth  October,  she  had  delighted  every  one  with  her 
inimitable  reading  aloud  of  David  Copperfield,  and  life  at 
Villa  Cristina,  on  that  day,  had  seemed,  if  possible,  more 
joyous  and  serene  than  usual.  The  next  morning  the  blow 
fell,  but  so  gently  as  to  be  almost  imperceptible.  Mrs. 
Labouchere,  feeling  a  little  giddy  on  rising,  had  returned  to 
her  bed  to  allow  the  temporary  sickness  to  pass  off.  By  the 
afternoon  she  was  beginning  to  slip  away  into  unconscious- 
ness, and  before  the  bells  in  the  neighbouring  convent  had 
begun  to  welcome  the  dawn  of  the  Tutli  Santi,  she  had  gone 
forth  alone  on  her  last  long  journey. 

The  winter  of  1910  and  1911  passed  quietly  away  for 
Mr.  Labouchere.  His  days  were  cheered  by  the  constant 
presence  of  his  daughter,  who  had  married  Marchesa  Carlo 
di  Rudini,  the  son  of  the  former  Prime  Minister  of  Italy,  and 
Mr.  Thomas  Hart  Davies  stayed  with  him  till  Christmas 
Day,  returning  to  Florence  again  in  the  early  spring.  A 
succession  of  visitors  from  England  and  Rome  kept  the  house 


536  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

gay  and  lively  as  he  loved  to  have  it,  always  provided  that 
he  had  to  take  upon  himself  none  of  the  activities  or  responsi- 
bility of  entertaining.  "I  am  merely  a  passenger  on  the 
ship,"  he  would  say,  when  he  wanted  to  wriggle  out  of  any 
active  participation  in  the  organisation  of  whatever  might 
be  going  on.  But  it  always  happened  to  be  towards  the 
corner  of  the  ship  where  that  particular  passenger  was 
resting  that  the  pleasure  and  interest  of  every  one  converged. 
It  was  not  so  much  the  charm  of  his  talk,  that  was,  perhaps, 
more  entertaining  in  his  old  age  than  it  had  ever  been,  as  the 
extraordinarily  youthful  and  never  failing  interest  that 
he  continued  to  take  in  the  affairs  of  every  one  else  that 
made  him  the  best  conversationalist  in  the  world. 
No  little  event  of  the  smallest  human  interest  was 
too  trivial  to  amuse  him,  and  to  awake  the  never  fail- 
ing source  of  his  mother  wit.  He  passed  the  summer  at 
Villa  Cristina  and  went  to  Villa  d'Este  in  September. 
Though  his  spirits  were  as  gay  and  unflagging  as  ever 
throughout  the  winter,  it  was  easy  to  see  that  his  phys- 
ical strength  was  beginning  to  weaken.  The  walk  which 
he  took  daily  round  his  garden  fatigued  him  so  much  that, 
by  Christmas,  he  had  given  up  even  that  mild  form  of 
exercise. 

He  experienced  another  bereavement  during  the  winter  in 
the  death  of  his  oldest  and  most  intimately  associated  friend, 
Sir  George  Lewis.  He  felt  his  loss  very  deeply,  and  I 
remember  that  when  he  told  me  the  news  his  voice  was  full 
of  emotion.  He  related  that  Sir  George  Lewis  had  always 
looked  upon  him  as  his  mascotte.  "As  long  as  you're  alive 
and  flourishing,  Labby, "  he  used  to  say,  "  I  shall  be  all  right  i 
too,  so  mind  you  take  care  of  yourself. "  "Just  shows  what ' 
nonsense  all  those  things  are, "  continued  Mr.  Labouchere, 
"for  here  am  I  as  well  and  strong  as  ever,  and  there  is 
poor  Lewis  dead  and  gone."  The  return  of  Mr.  Hart 
Davies  to  the  Villa  early  in  December  cheered  him  up 
immensely,  and  his  devoted  friend  did  not  leave  his  side 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS  537 

again,  until  the  last  sad  morning  when  he  bade  farewell  to 
him  on  the  hill  of  San  Miniato. 

It  was  fitting  perhaps  that  almost  the  last  letter  that  Mr. 
Labouchere  should  have  written,  should  have  been  to  one  of 
his  old  theatrical  friends.  Mr.  Charles  James  Sugden,  the 
actor,  wrote  to  him  and  asked  him  to  write  a  preface  to  his 
(Sugden's)  forthcoming  volume  of  Reminiscences.  Here  is 
Mr.  Labouchere's  reply : 

VILLA  CWSTIKA,  Jan.  4,  1912. 

MY  DEAR  SUGDEN — You  ask  me  to  write  a  preface  to  your 
forthcoming  book.  I  don't  think  that  I  ever  read  one  in  my  life, 
for  they  always  seem  to  be  platitudes,  impertinently  thrust  for- 
ward by  some  person  who  has  an  exaggerated  idea  of  his  own 
importance,  in  order  to  hinder  me  from  getting  at  what  I  really 
do  want  to  read.  Good  wine  needs  no  bush,  and  I  shall  be 
greatly  disappointed  if  I  do  not  derive  great  pleasure  from  read- 
ing yours,  for  you  have  been  brought  into  close  contact  with  so 
many  persons  of  note  in  their  day,  and  some  of  whom  are  still 
in  this  world,  and  can  throw  many  sidelights  on  them,  and  know 
many  anecdotes  about  them.  Pray  bring  it  out  as  soon  as 
possible.  I  am  now  over  eighty,  and  at  about  that  age  senile 
imbecility  commences,  so  I  do  not  want  it  to  make  progress 
before  I  have  had  the  opportunity  to  read  the  book  and  can 
appreciate  it. f — Yours  truly, 

H.  LABOUCHERE. 

But  it  was  not  until  the  beginning  of  the  second  week  in 
January  that  we  all  felt  certain  that  he  would  never  be  well 
again.  He  was  sauntering  along  so  gently  and  carelessly, 
as  only  Labby  knew  how  to  saunter,  towards  the  brink  of 
the  dark  river.  When  the  little  heaps  of  cigarettes,  that 
were  arranged  about  his  library  so  as  to  be  always  ready  to 
his  hand,  ceased  to  dwindle  as  usual,  it  became  clear  to  each 
and  all  that  he  must  be  very  ill  indeed.  As  simply  as  a  child, 
tired  with  play,  he  took  to  his  bed  on  the  nth  of  January, 

1  The  Referee,  Jan.  21,  1912. 


538  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

and  did  not  get  up  again.     He  died  peacefully  at  midnight 
on  January  15,  1912. 

The  earliest  remark  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  that  I  have 
recorded  in  this  book  was  a  jest,  and  so  was  the  last  I  heard 
him  utter.  On  the  afternoon  of  the  day  before  he  died,  as 
I  was  sitting  at  his  bedside,  the  spirit  lamp  that  kept  the 
fumes  of  eucalyptus  in  constant  movement  about  his  room, 
through  some  awkwardness  of  mine,  was  overturned.  Mr. 
Labouchere,  who  was  dozing,  opened  his  eyes  at  the  sound  of 
the  little  commotion  caused  by  the  accident,  and  perceived 
the  flare-up.  "Flames?"  he  murmured  interrogatively, 
"not  yet,  I  think."  He  laughed  quizzically,  and  went  off 
to  sleep  again. 

The  words  in  which  Mr.  Hart  Davies  conveyed  the  news 
of  his  end  to  Carteret  Street  are  so  beautiful  in  their  simple 
directness  that  no  others  can  fitly  replace  them  in  this 
biography: 

"His  mind  always  remained  perfectly  clear.  He  took  a 
lively  interest  in  the  German  elections,  the  political  crisis  in 
France,  and  the  events  of  the  Italian-Turkish  War.  He  was 
ever  one  for  whom  nothing  that  concerned  the  human  race 
(nihil  humani)  was  alien  to  his  vivid  intelligence.  But  his 
bodily  powers  were  constantly  declining,  and  on  Monday, 
January  15,  just  before  midnight,  the  end  came,  peacefully 
and  painlessly,  a  fitting  termination  to  the  career  of  one  who 
had  ever  been  a  fighter  and  ever  in  the  forefront  of  the  battle. 

"He  was  buried  on  Wednesday  morning,  under  the  cold 
drizzling  rain  of  the  Florentine  winter,  at  San  Miniato,  in  the 
same  grave  with  his  wife,  who  died  some  fifteen  months  before 
him.  There,  his  tomb,  at  the  edge  of  the  western  battlement 
of  San  Miniato,  looks  over  the  Tower  of  Galileo  and  the 
dark  cypresses  of  Arcetri.  It  may  be  said  of  him,  as  Heine 
said  of  himself,  that  on  his  grave  should  be  placed  'not  a 
wreath,  but  a  sword,  for  he  was  a  brave  soldier  in  the  war 
for  the  liberation  of  humanity."1 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS  539 

Before  his  death,  he  had  expressed  a  strong  wish  as  to 
the  place  of  his  burial.  He  wanted  to  rest  beside  his  wife 
at  San  Miniato.  But,  when  the  arrangements  for  the  funeral 
were  about  to  be  made,  it  was  remembered  that  only 
Catholics  were  permitted  to  lie  in  the  beautiful  cemetery  of 
the  Florentines.  The  difficulty  seemed  insuperable,  and  the 
preliminary  steps  had  already  been  taken  to  bury  him  in  the 
Protestant  graveyard.  His  daughter,  however,  determined 
to  leave  no  stone  unturned  so  that  she  might  carry  out  her 
father's  dying  wishes.  An  appeal  was  made  to  some  munici- 
pal authority,  and,  by  an  extraordinary  coincidence,  that 
seemed  to  make  Labby's  funeral  fit  in  with  all  the  rest  of  his 
strange  paradoxical  career,  it  was  ascertained  that,  just 
at  that  moment,  the  possession  of  the  cemetery  was  passing 
out  of  the  hands  of  the  religious  body  to  whom  it  had 
hitherto  belonged,  and  was  becoming  the  property  of  the  lay 
ecclesiastical  authority  of  the  city,  and  there  had  been  no 
time  for  new  regulations  or  restrictions  to  be  formulated. 
There  were,  therefore,  from  a  legal  point  of  view,  none  in 
existence,  and  so  it  turned  out  that  Mr.  Labouchere  was 
permitted  to  lie  in  the  spot  that  he  had  himself  chosen. 

For  many  days  after  his  death,  the  letters  of  condolence 
and  sympathy  from  all  quarters  of  the  globe  continued  to 
pour  into  the  deserted  home.  Of  these  one  must  assuredly 
be  published,  for  it  bears  witness  to  the  loyalty  and  affection 
that  was  unfailingly  manifested  to  him  by  the  borough  he 
had  represented  for  twenty-five  years  in  Parliament.  It 
was  addressed  to  Marchesa  di  Rudini,  by  Mr.  Edwin  Barnes, 
the  Secretary  of  the  Northampton  Liberal  and  Radical 
Association,  and  ran  as  follows: 


At  a  special  meeting  of  the  Executive  Committee  of  the 
above  Association,  held  last  night,  the  following  resolution  was 
unanimously  passed,  which  I  was  directed  to  send  to  you:  "The 
Liberals  and  Radicals  of  Northampton  have  heard  with  the 
deepest  regret  of  the  death  of  the  Right  Hon.  Henry  Labouchere, 


540  HENRY  LABOUCHERE 

who,  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  faithfully  represented 
the  Borough  in  the  House  of  Commons.  The  members  of  the 
Executive  of  the  Northampton  Liberal  and  Radical  Association 
hereby  place  on  record  the  profound  gratitude  of  all  its  members 
for  the  loyal  service  which  Mr.  Labouchere  rendered  to  the  cause 
of  Democracy  during  so  many  years.  Whoever  faltered,  he 
stood  firm,  and  it  will  always  be  a  proud  remembrance  that 
Northampton  also  stood  firm,  and  that  there  was  no  break  in 
the  mutual  confidence  of  member  and  constituents.  To  his 
daughter,  the  Marchesa  di  Rudini,  and  other  members  of  Mr. 
Labouchere's  family,  we  offer  our  sincerest  sympathy  in  the 
irreparable  loss  that  they  have  sustained,  and  trust  they  may 
find  some  consolation  in  the  warm  tributes  that  have  been  paid 
by  men  of  all  parties  to  his  life,  character,  and  work. "  Having 
known  Mr.  Labouchere  for  many  years,  and  being  his  agent  in 
the  important  election  of  1900  (during  the  Boer  War),  allow  me 
to  add  my  own  personal  sympathy  and  condolence  with  you. 


INDEX 


ABBEVILLE,  Labouchere  at,  141 

Abbot,  Labouchere's  action  against, 
108,  109 

Abdulal  Pasha,  exile  of,  221 

Abercorn,  Duke  of,  85 

Aberdeen,  Earl  of,  262;  Col.  Turner 
as  aide  to,  361 

Adelphi  Theatre,  Green  at  the,  29 

Affirmation  Act,  passing  of  the,  160 

Afghan  War,  the,  143 

Afrikanders,  National  League  of,  437 

Aix,  Provence,  Fouch6  exiled  to,  12 

Albert,  Prince,  67 

Albret,  Jeanne  d',  founder  of  the 
Protestant  University  at  Orthez,  I 

Alexander  II.,  Emperor  of  Russia, 
watches  Labouchere  at  ecarte,  57 

Alexandria,  bombardment  of,  71, 
J94,  195,  196,  218 

Aliens  Bill,  170 

Alison  on  Mexico,  33 

Alison,  Sir  Archibald,  his  command  in 
Egypt,  209 

Alliance  Loan,  the,  13 

Allsopp,  Labouchere  on,  239 

America,  Bradlaugh  in,  161-64; 
Fenianism  in,  81,  170,  288,  309- 
10,  385;  its  constitution  an  example 
for  England  and  Ireland,  237-8, 
293,  294,  298,  531-33;  its  diplomats 
in  Paris  during  the  siege,  43;  its 
interest  in  Labouchere's  Paris 
letters,  96;  its  labour  system  com- 
pared with  English,  461,  471,  479; 
its  surgery  and  its  girls  in  the 
Franco- Prussian  War,  44,  45;  its 
system  of  education,  42;  Labou- 
chere's prediction  for,  14,  41,  44, 
226;  Lord  Taunton  travels  in, 
14-15;  unpopularity  of  Parnell  in, 

378 

Amiens,  Labouchere  at,  140 
Amsterdam,  house  of  Hope  at,  2,  10 
Anarchist  party,  the,  418 


Anglo-American  War,  9 

Anne,  Queen,  Labouchere  on,  245 

Antwerp,  7,  10 

Appeals  in  the  House  of  Lords,  La- 
bouchere on,  83 

Appropriation  Act,  the,  354 

Arabi  Pasha,  exile  of,  203-9,  219-24; 
rebellion  of,  70-1,  195-98,  202,  215 

Arago,  Mayor  of  Paris,  127 

Arkiow,  Parnell  at,  258 

Armenian  persecutions,  the,  435 

Arms  Bill,  the,  172 

Army,  Labouchere  on  the,  478 

Arrears  Bill,  the  passing  of,  176,  179, 
181,  183,  187,  252,  361 

Ascot,  Labouchere  at,  106 

Ashbpurne,  his  Irish  policy,  279 

Asquith,  Rt.  Hon.  H.  H.,  counsel  for 
Parnell  v.  Walter,  374  n.,  407 

Assouan,  209 

Athlone,  Stamforth  contests,  525 

Atkinson,  American  statist,  468 

Atkinson,  counsel  for  the  Times,  374 
n. 

Audiffret-Pasquier,  Due  d',  Histoire 
de  Mon  Temps,  13  n. 

Austen,  Charles,  correspondent  in 
Paris  during  the  siege,  141  n. 

Australia,  J.  R.  Cox  in,  223 

Austria,  customs  union  with,  418 

Austrian  charg6  d'affaires,  in  Stock- 
holm, Labouchere's  duel  with,  50 

Austro- Prussian  War,  the,  97 

Avebury,  Lord,  at  Eton,  18 

Aztecs,  the,  in  Mexico,  34 

BACON,  LORD,  quoted,  20,  515 
Baden-Baden,  Labouchere  at,  54,  65, 
Baggallay,   Lord  Justice,   his  judg- 
ment against  Bradlaugh,   157;  on 
Labouchere  in  Hyde  Park,  364 
Baker,  his  army  in  Egypt,  199 
Balfour,  Rt.  Hon.  A.  J.,  administra- 
tion of,  438,  517,  518,  524,  531; 


541 


INDEX 


Balfour — Continued 

Bannerman  on,  455;  Gladstone's 
letters  to,  re  Home  Rule,  289,  298; 
his  coercive  measures  as  Irish 
Secretary,  357-60;  Labouchere  on 
his  philosophy,  369 

Ballantine,  Serjeant,  acts  as  counsel 
for  Labouchere,  76n.f  77;  atEvans', 
29;  dines  with  Labouchere  and 
Orton,  116 

Balloons,  as  letter  carriers,  during 
the  siege  of  Paris,  128-35 

Ballot  Act,  amendments  of  the,  272 

Balston,  Edward,  Labouchere's  house 
master  at  Eton,  18 

Bannerman,  Sir  Henry  Campbell, 
his  letters  to  Labouchere,  re  retire- 
ment, 517,  523;  his  premiership, 
518,  524,  531;  on  Chamberlain's 
South  African  policy,  427,  448, 

449,  454,  455 

Baring,  Alexander,  partner  in  the 
house  of  Hope,  2 

Baring,  Rev.  Alexander,  his  story  of 
P.-C.  Labouchere,  2 

Baring  Brothers,  restore  French 
credit,  12,  13;  their  crisis  in  1890, 
489 

Baring,  Dorothy,  her  marriage  to 
P.-C.  Labouchere,  2 

Baring,  Emily,  marriage  of,  14  n. 

Baring,  Sir  Evelyn.   See  Lord  Cromer 

Baring,  Hon.  Francis  Henry,  3  n. 

Baring,  Sir  Francis,  consents  to  his 
daughter's  marriage,  3;  his  friend- 
ship with  Wellesley,  5,  7,  8 

Baring,  Lucy,  daughter  of  Charles, 
13  n. 

Banng,  Sir  Thomas,  his  daughters' 
marriages,  14 

Baring,  M.  P.,  Thomas  Charles,  3  n. 

Baring.     See  Lord  Revelstoke 

Barnes,  Edwin,  Secretary  of  North- 
ampton Liberal  and  Radical  As- 
sociation, 539 

Barrere,  Camille,  on  the  staff  of  the 
World,  107 

Barrier,  Jean  Guyon,  2 

Barrow,  Cavendish  influence  at,  350 

Barton  fights  Labouchere  at  Eton, 
18 

Bass,  Labouchere  on,  239 

Bathurst,  Lord,  as  Foreign  Secretary, 
6 

Bavaria,  an  example  for  Ireland,  533 

Bayonne,  I 

Bazaine,  Marshal,  at  Metz,  123,  124 

Beaconsfield,  Earl  of,  advises  North- 


cote  in  the  Bradlaugh  case,  154; 
arranges  an  Egyptian  loan  with 
Rothschilds,  190,  191;  attends  the 
'Berlin  Congress,  191,  192;  de- 
feated at  Taunton,  13,  14;  his 
administration,  85,  86,  235,  520; 
his  Imperialism,  143 

Bedford,  Duke  of,  Burke's  letter  to, 
231 

Beefsteak  Club,  the,  Labouchere's 
expulsion  from,  117 

Beit,  Alfred,  his  complicity  in  the 
Jameson  Raid,  426,  428,  431 

Belfast,  manufacturers  of,  276,  319 

Belgium,  Egypt  compared  with,  203, 
206 

Bell,  Moberley,  manager  of  the  Times, 
436 

Bellew,  Kyrle,  de"but  of,  1 1 1 ,  496 

Bellew,  Montesquieu,  Labouchere 
travels  to  Palestine  with,  111-13, 
496 

Belloc,  Hilaire,  as  a  conversationalist, 

73 
Bennett,    Robert,    editor   of    Truth, 

518;  on  Labouchere  as  a  journalist, 

491-516 
Berlin    Congress,    the,    Disraeli   and 

Salisbury  attend,  191,  192 

Decree  of,  9 

Beza,  Theodore,  professor  at  Orthez,  I 
Bigham,  427.     See  Lord  Mersey 
Bingham,  Captain  Hon.  D.,  in  Paris 

during  the  siege,  138  n.,  141  n. 
Birmingham,    Chamberlain,    M.    P. 

for,  167,  241,  322,  323;  death-rate 

of,  463 

Birmingham  Post,  455 
Biron,  Mr.,  counsel  for  Labouchere, 

76  n. 
Bishop    Auckland,    Labouchere    at, 

118 

Bishops,  Labouchere  on,  241 
Bismarck,  96  n.;  as  Ambassador  at 

St.  Petersburg,  62;  at  the  Berlin 

Congress,    192;   his   Memoirs,   70; 

threatens  intervention  in  Egypt, 

194 

Blackwood,  Sir  Arthur,  at  Eton,  18 
Blake,   his  support  of   Labouchere, 

427 
Blanc,  Louis,  Labouchere  protected 

by,  132 
Blaquieres,  M.  de,  French  controller 

in  Egypt,  195 
Bloemfontein,  capture  of,  454 

Conference,  the,  455 

Blucher,  General,  57 


INDEX 


543 


Blunt,  Wilfrid  Scawen,  Cordon  and 
Khartoum,  quoted,  214;  his  remi- 
niscences 01  Labouchere,  69-73; 
his  support  of  Arabi  Pasha,  204, 
222;  Labouchere's  letters  to,  re 
Arabi  in  exile,  220,  224;  Labou- 
chere's letters  to,  re  the  Soudan 
War,  216-19;  on  the  death  of 
Gordon,  212;  on  Disraeli  and  Salis- 
bury, 174;  on  the  English  policy 
in  Egypt,  193,  204,  214-15;  on 
Labouchere  as  a  politician,  198, 
214;  Secret  History  of  the  English 
Occupation  of  Egypt,  quoted,  190  n., 
192  n. 

Boadicea,  244 

Boer  War,  the  history  of  the,  436- 
57;  Labouchere's  protests  against, 

436,  438-39,  540 

Boers,  the,  their  resentment  against 
England,  437.  See  also  under 
Transvaal 

Bologna,  61 

Bonn,  32 

Bonner,  Mrs.  Bradlaugh,  Life  of  Mr. 
Bradlaugh,  142  n. 

Booth,  Charles,  statist,  460 

Booth,  Sclater,  Labouchere  on,  239 

Boston,  Labouchere  mistaken  for  an 
Irish  patriot,  in,  47,  48 

Boulogne,  Labouchere  at,  500 

Bourbon,  the  House  of,  8 

Bo  wen,  Lord  Justice,  501 

Bower,  Sir  Graham,  censure  of,  428 

Bowles,  Thomas  Gibson,  correspond- 
ent in  Paris  duringthe  siege,  141  n. 

Boycott,  Captain,  English  agent  of 
Lord  Mayo,  165 

Boycotting,  practice  of,  165,  176,  185 

Boyd,  Charles,  his  interview  with 
Labouchere,  435,  436 

Bradford,  election  of  1886  at,  326 
— Forster,  M.  P.  for,  176 

Bradlaugh,  Charles,  Gladstone's 
tribute  to,  160-61;  his  imprison- 
ment, 154;  his  struggle  for  the 
right  to  affirm,  145-64;  Labou- 
chere's defence  of,  148,  151,  156- 
64;  returned  for  Northampton, 
142-45,  158 

Brampton,  Henry,  Lord,  his  letter 
to  Labouchere,  re  retirement,  526 

Bramwell,  Lord  Justice,  his  decision 
against  Bradlaugh,  157 

Brand,  M.  P.  for  Strom  1,  334 

Brand,  Sir  Henry,  238;  his  rulings  in 
the  Bradlaugh  struggle,  146,  151-2, 
1 60 


Brassey,  Lord,  Labouchere  on,  239 
Brennan,     his    imprisonment,    172, 

174 

Brentford,  election  scenes  at,  in 
1868,  86,  90-2 

Breslin,  John,  American  Fenian,  385, 
396 

Breteuil,  Labouchere  at,  140 

Brett,  280,  289 

Bridges,  Sir  Henry,  his  ditty,  117. 
See  Appendix 

Brielle,  6 

Bright,  John,  his  defence  of  Brad- 
laugh,  146,  149-51;  Labouchere's 
admiration  of,  171,  228;  opposes 
coercive  measures  in  Ireland,  166, 
181,  187;  opposes  the  Egyptian 
policy,  220 

Brighton,  Labouchere  at,  269,  273; 
Voules  at,  507 

Bristol,  Lord,  Labouchere's  fag  at 
Eton,  19  n. 

British  South  Africa  Company,  its 
complicity  in  the  Jameson  Raid, 
426-37,  438,  452,  454;  its  evacua- 
tion of  Uganda,  420 

British  virtue,  Labouchere's  indict- 
ments of,  105 

Broadley,  A.  M.,  How  We  Defended 
Arabi  and  His  Friends,  quoted  by 
Arabi,  222 

Broome  Hall,  Surrey,  John  Peter 
Labouchere  at,  16,  31,  73 

Broue,  Catherine  de  la,  2 

Brough,  Lionel,  at  New  Queen's 
Theatre,  99;  bluffs  Labouchere,  94 

Brousson,  L.,  on  the  staff  of  Truth, 
505,  509 

Brownngg,  Inspector,  Labouchere 
on  his  conduct  at  Michelstown, 
368-71 

Bruce,  Campbell,  counsel,  76  n. 

Brunner,  Mr.,  at  Michelstown,  365, 

367 

Brunswick,  House  of,  Bradlaugh's 
impeachment  of,  148 

Bryce,  James,  on  the  Coercion  Bill, 
182 

Buckcnbrock,  Labouchere's  friend- 
ship with,  52 

Budget  Bill  of  1885,  the,  251 

Buenos  Ayres,  Labouchere's  appoint- 
ment in,  65  \ 

Buffalo  Bill's  Wild  West  Show, 
Indians  in,  40 

Buffon  quoted,  133 

Bulgaria,  Turks  in,  200 

Buller,  his  policy  in  Ireland,  361 


544 


INDEX 


Buller,  Sir  Henry,  as  Ambassador  at 
Constantinople,  54,  63,  64.  See 
Lord  Dalling 

Buller,  Sir  Redvers,  in  Pretoria,  440 

Bunsen,  Labouchere  on,  308 

Buonaparte,  Jerome,  9 

Buonaparte,  Joseph,  in  Spain,  8,  9 

Buonaparte,  Louis,  as  king  of  Hol- 
land, 5-9 

Bureaucracy,  Labouchere  on,  122 

Burke,  Under-Secretary  for  Ireland, 
murder  of,  174,  175,  359,  372 

Burke,  Edmund,  his  letter  to  the 
Duke  of  Bedford,  231 

Burmah  as  a  political  pawn,  310-12 

Burnaby,  Captain  Fred,  his  reminis- 
cence of  Labouchere,  242 

Busch,  Our  Chancellor,  53  n. 

Butler,  General  Sir  William,  his 
command  in  South  Africa,  437 

Buxton,  Sidney,  427 

Byrne,  Frank,  386 

Byron,  H.  J.,  Dearer  than  Life,  99 


CADENABBIA,  Labouchere  at,  418-21, 

423,  515,  535 

Caine,  M.P.,  Labouchere  on,  350 

Cairnes,  quoted  by  Hyndman,  481, 
482 

Cairo,  Arabi  at,  70,  204;  General 
Gordon  in,  212;  Lord  Wolseley  in, 
208;  Prefect  of  Police  at,  216 

Calais,  Labouchere  at,  127 

Calcraft,  hangman,  115 

Cald well's  dancing  rooms,  105 

Callan,  M.P.,  Mr.,  on  Bright  and 
Bradlaugh,  150 

Cambridge,  St.  Peter's  College,  23; 
Trinity  College,  Labouchere  at, 
22-7,  251,  491,  522 

Cambridge,  Duchess  of,  her  friend- 
ship with  Labouchere,  54 

Campbell,  secretary  to  Parnell,  375, 
396 

Campbell,  Sir  George,  208 

Canada,  Dominion  of,  Labouchere  on, 

301,  304 

Canning,  George,  his  duel  with 
Castlereagh,  6 

Canrobert,  Marshal,  his  corps,  123  n. 

Cape  Colony,  Lord  Milner  as  Gover- 
nor of,  437;  Rhodes  as  Premier  of, 
427,  430;  war  spirit  in,  437 

Capital  v.  Labour,  discussed  by 
Hyndman  and  Labouchere  at 
Northampton,  458-90 

Card  well,  Mr.,  136 


Carey,  James,  informer,  forged  letters 

to,  372,  374,  375,  384 

Carlisle,  Earl  of,  14 

Carnarvon,  Lord,  as  Viceroy  of  Ire- 
land, 251-56,  279,  282,  286 

Carrington,  Lord,  assaults  Grenville 
Murra}r,  no  n. 

Caspian  Sea,  the,  135 

Cassell,  Fetter,  and  Galpin,  firm  of, 

493 

Castlereagh,  his  duel  with  Canning, 
6 

Catholic  Emancipation,  question  of, 
6 

Cattle-maiming  in  Ireland,  165,  169 

Cavendish  family,  the,  their  influence 
at  Barrow,  350 

Cavendish,  Lord  E.,  Chamberlain  on, 
271 

Cavendish,  Lord  Frederick,  146; 
murder  of,  174,  175,  188,  358,  359, 
372 

Cavour,  Gladstone  on,  419;  Labou- 
chere's  reminiscences  of,  62 

Ceylon,  Arabi's  exile  in,  204-9,220-24 

Chalons,  French  camp  at,  122-23  n. 

Chamberlain,  Joseph,  as  President 
of  the  Local  Government  Board, 
317  n.;  Churchill  on,  209;  Healy  on, 
3°3,  363;  his  alleged  complicity 
in  the  Jameson  Raid,  427,  431, 
446,  452;  his  correspondence  with 
Labouchere  re  the  Boer  War,  446- 
54;  his  correspondence  with  La- 
bouchere on  Home  Rule,  261-356; 
his  Egyptian  policy,  70,  211,  212; 
his  Irish  policy  prior  to  the  Home 
Rule  Bill,  256-303;  his  probable 
Premiership,  226,  227,  249,  280, 
319,  320,  349;  his  responsibility, 
as  Colonial  Secretary,  for  the  Boer 
War,  437-38,  442-57;  his  scheme 
of  Home  Rule,  255,  326;  his  seces- 
sion from  the  Liberal  party  over 
Home  Rule,  226-28,  318-355; 
Labouchere's  admiration  of,  259; 
Labouchere's  letters  to,  re  Brad- 
laugh,  159;  Labouchere's  letters 
to,  re  the  Egyptian  policy,  205-6, 
210,  21 1 ;  Labouchere's  letters  to, 
re  the  Irish  Coercion  Bill,  177- 
187;  Labouchere's  letters  to,  re  Ra- 
dicalism, 41-2,  226-27;  Labou- 
chere's opposition  to,  519,  531; 
on  Gladstone's  Irish  policy,  167, 
189,  226,  263,  266,  271,  306; 
on  Herbert  Gladstone,  265;  on 
the  House  of  Lords,  241;  on  the 


INDEX 


545 


Chamber  la  in — Continued 

Land  Question,  276,  292;  on  the 
Parnell  Commission,  383;  on  Salis- 
bury's Irish  policy,  251;  opposes 
the  use  of  coercion  in  Ireland,  165, 

173.  189 

Chaplin,  M.P.,  Henry,  146,  150;  on 
the  Coercion  Bill,  187 

Chartered  Company.  See  British 
South  Africa. 

Chatham,  Earl  of,  his  death,  6 

Chaumes,  Prussian  army  at,  127 

Chelmsford,  Morley  at,  322 

Chesterfield,  Philip,  Earl  of,  his 
Letters  to  His  Son,  29;  quoted,  88 

Chevreau,  M.,  126 

Chiala,  Signor,  on  the  relations  be- 
tween England  and  Italy,  410 

Chicago,  Healy  in,  310 

Childers,  M.P.,  his  Irish  sympathies, 
150,  260,347 

China,  industrialism  of,  468,  479,  487 

Chinese  Labour  question,  the,  La- 
bouchere on,  531 

Chippeway  Indians,  Labouchere's 
life  among  the,  40-41 

Christina  of  Sweden,  Queen,  Labou- 
chere  on,  245 

Church  of  England,  Disestablish- 
ment of  the.  See  Disestablishment. 

Church  Patronage  Bill,  the,  Labou- 
chere  on,  243 
—  Rates  Abolition  Act,  81 

Churchill,  Lord  Randolph,  at  Brigh- 
ton, 269;  at  Twickenham,  356; 
Chamberlain  on,  253,  264,  271, 
285-86,  288,  313;  Hartington's 
quarrel  with,  278,  282;  Healy  on, 
274,  283,  285,  303,  313,  362,  363; 
his  comment  on  Labouchere  s 
Michelstown  speech,  368,  397;  his 
friendship  with  Labouchere,  250; 
his  illness,  262;  his  letters  to  Labou- 
chere re  Home  Rule,  285,  289, 
298  ff.,  307;  his  letter  to  Salisbury 
re  Home  Rule,  279;  in  Ireland,  282; 
in  opposition,  409;  Labouchere  on, 

?'5.  3'9.  344!  negotiates  with  the 
rish  party,  254-303,  315;  on 
Chamberlain,  298,  308;  on  the 
Conservative  party,  24^8;  refers  to 
Labouchere  as  "  the  religious  mem- 
ber," 142 

Churchill,  Winston  Spencer,  Lord 
Randolph  Churchill,  quoted,  280  n. 

Civil  List,  the,  Labouchere's  attacks 
on,  233,  234,  239-40,  246,  409,  413, 
465-66,  478 

35 


Clan-na-Gael,  the,  takes  possession 

of  Parnell  letters,  386 
Clarendon,  Earl  of,  67;  Viceroy  of 

Ireland,  251 

Clarke  v.  Bradlaugh,  action  of,   157 
Clayton,    John,    at    New    Queen's 

Theatre,  99 
Cleave,  Mr.,  76 
Clongowes,  school  at,  404 
Clonmel,  Mayor  of,  at  Michelstown, 

366 
Coalition  Ministry,  the,  6;  of  1885- 

86  proposed,  268,  270,  295,  304 
Cobden,    Richard,    on    landlordism, 

235 

Cockermouth,  Lawson  M.P.  for,  524 
Coercion  Bills,  passing  of  the,  171- 

179, 238, 251, 256, 263, 313, 357-61, 

363 

Colenso,  440 

Collectivism   v.     Individualism    dis- 
cussed by  Labouchere  and  Hynd- 
man,  463,  464,  479 
Ceilings,  Jes,  333;  his  amendment, 

315,  3i6 

Communism,  Hyndman  on,  485 
Conde\  Prince  de,  his  army,  7 
Condorcet,  his  gambling  system,  66 
Connaught,  Duke  of,  his  allowance, 

233 

Conservative  party,  the,  Labouchere 
on,  247-48,  458;  their  advances  to 
the  Irish,  251,  308 

Constantinople,  Labouchere  as  secre- 
tary of  Embassy  at,  54,  62-5;  Lord 
Stratford  Ambassador  at,  62,  63 

Constitutional  monarchy,  Labou- 
chere on,  230,  233,  242,  246 

Cooke,  Q.C.,  W.  H.,  76  n. 

Coombe,  Gladstone  at,  214 

Cooper,  Labouchere's  tutor  at  Cam- 
bridge, 22 

Co-operation,  principle  of,  472 

Cork,  Mayor  of,  at  Michelstown,  366, 
367;  Parnell  M.P.  for,  174,  378 

Cortes  in  Mexico,  34 

Corti,  Count,  on  the  Berlin  Congress, 
192  n. 

County  Councils,  establishment  of, 
302 

Covent  Garden,  Labouchere's  life  in, 
28-30,  70 

Covington,  Frederick,  418  n. 

Cowper,  Lord,  Viceroy  of  Ireland, 
his  resignation,  174;  urges  coercion, 
165,  166,  173,  175 

Cox,  M.P.,  J.  K.,  his  visit  to  Arabi, 
223 


546 


INDEX 


Crampton,  Mr.,  British  Minister  at 
Washington,  46,  47 

Crawford,  George  Morland,  leaves 
Paris  before  the  siege,  119-120 

Crawford,  Mrs.,  on  Labouchere  as  a 
diplomatist,  66,  67-8;  on  Labou- 
chere in  Paris  before  the  siege,  119- 

I2O 

Cremorne,  Labouchere  at,  105,  129 
Crimean   War,   instigated    by   Lord 

Stratford,  63 ;  recruiting  in  America 

for,  45 

Crimes  Bill.     See  Prevention  of. 
Crimping,   practice  of,  in  America, 

45 

Cripps,  {5ir  Alfred,  on  the  Select  Com- 
mittee on  British  South  Africa,  427 

Cromer,  Lord,  as  English  Controller 
in  Egypt,  195,  212;  in  India,  210; 
on  General  Gordon,  212 

Cross,  Sir  R.  Assheton,  150;  Labou- 
chere on, 239 

Crown  and  Country,  financial  rela- 
tions between,  42,  230,  232,  242, 
246,  413 

Cuernava,  Labouchere  at,  36 

Gumming,  Dr.,  impersonation  of,  82 

Cunynghame,  Sir  Henry,  member  of 
the  Parnell  Commission,  373-74, 

395 

Cyprus,  England's  lease  of,  191,  192, 
197,  222 

Daily  Chronicle,  Spender  of,  448 

Daily  News,  affected  by  Birmingham 
imperialism,  96  n. ;  Churchill  on, 
279,  286;  Labouchere  as  a  corre- 
spondent of,43-44, 96, 1 14, 1 19-41 ; 
Labouchere 's  financial  connection 
with,  95,  96,  492;  on  Home  Rule, 
257»  274,  279.  299»  326;  on  the  Par- 
nell Commission,  383-84,  393;  on 
the  Triple  Alliance,  411 

Daily  Telegraph,  its  action  against 
Labouchere,  500;  Lawley,  cor- 
respondent in  Paris,  141  «.;  on 
Home  Rule,  256 

Dalglish,  Robert,  76  n. 

Dallas,  correspondent  in  Paris  during 
the  siege,  141  n. 

Dalling,  Henry  Bulwer,  Lord,  as 
Ambassador  at  Constantinople, 
54,  63,  64 

Damascus,  Labouchere  at,  72 

Darmstadt,  Court  of,  plays  at  whist, 

55 
Darvill,  Mr.,  town-clerk  of  Windsor, 

75 


Darwin,  Charles,  Gladstone  on,  267 

Daunt,  O'Neill,  302 

Davitt,  Michael,  Healy  on,  254;  his 

scheme  for  the  nationalisation  of 

land,    179,    182-83;   his   letter   to 

Labouchere  re  Home  Rule,  257-58; 

Pigott  forgeries  of,  395,  396;  speaks 

against  the  Coercion  Bill,  363 
Davy  on  the  Coercion  Bill,  182,  185 
Day,    Sir   Charles,   member   of   the 

Parnell  Commission,  373,  393 
Deacon,  banker,  16 
Dead  Sea,  Labouchere  at  the,  112 
Dearer  than  Life,  produced  at  New 

Queen's  Theatre,  99 
De  Beers  Consolidated  Mines,  the, 

427 
Defence  of  Philosophic  Doubt,   Bal- 

four's,  369 
Delaney,  his  evidence  in  the  Parnell 

Commission,  384 
Democracy,  English  government  by 

the,  Labouchere  on,  238-39,  248, 

413,  418,  481,  540 
Derby,  Lord,  anecdotal  photograph 

of,  68;  Grenville  Murray's  attacks 

on,   109;  his  ministry,  85;  retires 

on   the   Egyptian   loan,   190,   191, 

193;  signs  the  Convention  of  1884, 

451;  travels  in  America,  14 
De  Sartines,  chief  of  police,  wit  of,  4 
Devonshire,    seventh    Duke   of,    his 

death,  363 
Devonshire,  eighth  Duke  of,  on  the 

House  of    Lords,  363.     See   Lord 

Hartington. 
Devonshire  House,  anti-Home  Rule 

meeting  at,  344  n. 
Devoy,  American  Fenian,  170 
Dhakool,  capture  of,  219,  220 
Dickens,  Charles,  David  Copperfield, 

535;  Household  Words,  32,  68 
Dictionary    of    National    Biography, 

46  n. 
Diet    of    Frankfort,    the,    Bismarck 

Prussian  representative  at,  52,  54, 

55 

Digby,  Sir  Kenelm,  28 

Dilke,  Sir  Charles,  436;  as  a  member 
of  Gladstone's  Government,  196, 
200,  204,  228,  233;  his  acquaintance 
with  foreign  affairs,  71;  his  Egyp- 
tian policy,  71,  196,  200,  204;  his 
return  to  Parliament,  418;  Labou- 
chere's  letters  to,  re  the  abolition 
of  the  House  of  Lords,  532-34; 
Labouchere's  letters  to,  re  the 
Egyptian  policy,  198-200;  letters 


INDEX 


547 


Dilke — Continued 
to  and  from  Labouchere  re  Home 
Rule,  325,  327-28;  secures  Labou- 
chere's  seat  in  the  House,  527 

Dillon,  Charles,  at  Michelstown, 
365-67;  Healy  on,  276,  362;  im- 
prisonment of,  1 72, 1 74;  his  speeches 
re  South  Africa,  438 


Diplomacy,  Bismarck  on  German, 
52;  Labouchere  on  English  and 
American,  44,  53,  411,  452 

Disestablishment  of  the  Church  of 
England  advocated  by  Labou- 
chere, 43,  226,  234,  243,  244,  248, 

4'7 

Disraeli,  Benjamin.  See  Beacons- 
field. 

Dongola,  434 

Donkey  as  a  diet,  139 

Donleath,  Stuart,  case  of,  187 

Dorking,  Mrs.  Labouchere  at  Oak- 
dene,  near,  130  n.,  138  n. 

Douay,  Abel,  death  of,  123 

Douglas,  Akers,  352 

Dramatic,   artists,    Labouchere    on, 

IOI-I02 

-  critic,  Labouchere  as  a,  496,  503 
Dresden,  Labouchere  as  attache'  at, 

59 

Drink  bill,  national,  466 
Dublin,   headquarters  of   the   Land 
League,  181,  183;  Healy  in,  239, 
271,  273,  283,   289,  303;   Liberal 
Unionists   of,    their    responsibility 
for  the  Pigott  children,  404;  Par- 
liament in,  422;  Parnell  at,  256; 
Phanix  Park,  174,  175;  proposed 
Irish  Parliament  in,  252,  306,  321, 
327,  339:  Redmond  in,  524;  trial 
of  the  Land  League  in,  166 
Dublin  Daily  Express,  279,  309 
Duclos,   Mattre,  notary  to  Trochu, 

136 

Ducrot,  General,  in  Paris,  136 
Dudley,  Lord,  marriage  of,  525 
Duelling,  Labouchere  s  experience  of, 

50 

Dufferin,  Lord,  his  Egyptian  policy, 
207,  208,  223 

Dumas,  Alexandre,  pert,  Labou- 
chere meets,  at  Genoa,  113,  114 

Dumas,  Mile.  Maria,  Labouchere  at 
the  wedding  of,  114 

Dunn,  Parliamentary  agent  at  Wind- 
sor, 75 

Du  Pre,  Caroline,  her  marriage,  14 
n. 

Du  Pre,  James,  banker,  16 


Du  Pre,  Rev.  William  Maxwell,  his 

marriage,  14  n. 
Durand's,  Paris,  120 
Durham,  Bishop  of,  3  n. 
Durrant,  Mr.,  solicitor  to  Sir  Henry 

Hoare,  76,  78-81 
Dyke,  Sir  W.  Hart,  427 
Dynamite  Concession,  the,  449 


Echo,  Voules  as  manager  of,  493 

Economy,  Labouchere  s  political,  409, 
410 

Eden,  Frederick  Morton,  his  reminis- 
cence of  Labouchere  at  Eton,  19 

Edict  of  Nantes,  revocation  of  the,  2 

Edinburgh,  Chamberlain  at,  323; 
represented  by  Goschen,  264,  297 

Education,  English  national,  Car- 
narvon on,  282;  Chamberlain  on, 
270;  Conservative  support  of  de- 
nominational, 258;  Labouchere  on, 
42-43,  84,  234,  235,  248;  Mundella 
as  Minister  of,  286 

Edward  VII.,  accession  of,  148;  as 
Prince  of  Wales,  defends  Grenville 
Murray,  67 

Edwards,  Passmore,  acquires  the 
Echo,  493 

Egan,  Patrick,  his  forged  corre- 
spondence with  Parnell,  358,  372- 
405;  treasurer  of  the  Land  League 
in  Paris,  172,  181,  182,  186,  358, 
372 

Egypt,  as  a  political  pawn,  310-13; 
English  occupation  of,  70-71,  72, 
190-224,  248,  259,  434;  French 
interest  in,  191,  192,  197,  203,  210; 
its  occupation  of  the  Soudan,  209; 
its  Soudanese  frontier  established, 
215,  216;  national  movement  under 
the  Arabi  in,  195-98,  205;  rule  of 
Khedives  in,  190-97,  205,  207-8 

Elandslaagte,  battle  of,  440 

Electoral  districts,  Labouchere  on, 
229 

Elephant  as  a  diet,  138 

Elgin,  Lord,  Governor  of  Canada,  at 
Washington,  45 

Elizabeth,    Queen,    Labouchere    on, 

245 

Ellenborough,  Lady,  in  Palestine,  72 
Ellis,  John,  427,  455 
Ellis,  T.  E.,at  Michelstown,  365,367 
El  Obeid,  the  Mahdi  at,  209,  210 
Enficld,  Lord,  his  quarrel  with  La- 
bouchere   during    the    Middlesex 
election,  85-93 


INDEX 


England,  house  of  Hope  transferred 
to,  4;  its  relations  with  America, 
81;  its  relations  with  Turkey,  196- 

7,  199 

English,  abroad,  Labouchere  on,  95 
— ^-diplomatists  in  Paris  during  the 

siege,  43-44 
institutions  contrasted  with  the 

American,  41 
system  of  education  contrasted 

with  the  American,  42-43 
Ephesus,  Council  of,  150 
Escott,  T.  H.  S.,  contribution  to  the 

World,  107 
Established  Church  of  England,     See 

Disestablishmen  t 
Eton,  education  at,  42;  Labouchere 

at,  18-21,  251,  491,  522 
Eugenie,  Empress,  in  Paris,  124,  126, 

134;  her  letter  derided,  134 
Evans',  Convent  Garden,  habitues  of 

28,   29;   Labouchere   in   residence 

at,  28-31,  70 

Eversley,  Lord,  Gladstone  and  Ire- 
land, quoted,  358  n.;  on  the  Land 

League,  172 

Evidence  Amendment  Act,  the,  145 
Expenses  of  Voters,  Labouchere  on, 

83 

PAGAN,  CAPTAIN,  received  by  Welles- 
ley,  7,  12 

Fagging,  Labouchere 's  views  on,  20 

Fairfield,  Mr.,  431 

Fakenham,  Rev.  John  Labouchere 
of,  21  n. 

Farnham  Castle,  2  n. 

Fatherland,  production  of,  103 

Favre,  Jules,  member  of  the  Pro- 
visional Government,  127,  128 

Fawcett,  Professor,  136 

Fenianism  in  America,  81,  170,  288, 
310-11;  in  Ireland,  171,  183,  186, 
275,  276;  Labouchere  on,  276,  278, 
282,  292,  316 

Fen  wick,  Mr.,  directs  the  case  against 
Labouchere  for  cribbing,  24-25 

Ferdinand  VII.  of  Spain,  Napoleon's 
treatment  of,  8,  10 

Ferguson,  Sir  James,  410,  412 

Fermoy,  Labouchere  at,  365 

Ferry,  Jules,  member  of  the  Pro- 
visional Government,  127 

Feudalism,  Labouchere  on,  241.  See 
also  Land  System 

Finance,  economical,  Labouchere's 
efforts  on  behalf  of,  246,  494-95, 
505 


Financial    Reform    Almanack,    the, 

quoted,  232 
Fitzgibbon,    Churchill    visits,    282, 

289 
Fitzmaurice,  Lord  Edmond,  his  letter 

to  Labouchere  re  retirement,  525-26 
Fletcher  Moulton,  Privy  Councillor, 

Florence,  flight  of  the  Grand  Duke 
from,  61 ;  Labouchere  in,  60-62, 72, 
95,  513,  517-23,  530-39;  Unione 
Club,  6 1 ;  Florence  Herald,  quoted, 
62  n. 

Flower,  Mr.,  retires  from  the  candi- 
dature of  Windsor,  75-80 

Foljambe,  Chamberlain  on,  271 

Fond  du  Lac,  Labouchere  at,  41 

Forbes,  Archibald,  on  the  staff  of  the 
World,  107;  war  correspondent  to 
the  Daily  News,  96,  127 

Foreign  Office,  Archives,  examples  of 
telegrams  in,  53,  54 

messengers,   their  expense, 

54 

Forster,  M.P.,  R.  N.,  seconds  Sir 
H.  D.  Wolff,  148 

Forster,  W.  E.,  Chief  Secretary  for 
Ireland,  allusions  to,  in  Parnell's 
supposed  letters,  372;  blackmailed 
by  Pigott,  393;  Healy  on,  303; 
his  arrest  of  Parnell,  172,  254;  his 
resignation,  174,  188,  267,  276; 
Labouchere  on,  282,  297;  urges 
coercive  measures  in  Ireland,  165- 
73,  176,  182 

Fortnightly  Review,  Chamberlain  on 
Home  Rule,  in  the,  255;  "Radicals 
and  Whigs"  quoted,  41,  42,  228-29 

Fottrell,  302 

Foucault  threatens  the  Protestants 
of  Orthez,  I 

Fouche'  negotiates  his  own  downfall, 
5-12 

Fowler,  Sir  Henry,  his  speech  inspired 
by  Labouchere,  350 

France,  financial  situation  of,  in 
1817,  12,  13;  Guizot  on,  480;  in- 
auguration of  the  Third  Republic, 
126,  127,  191;  its  interests  in 
Egypt,  190,  192,  197,  203,  210 

Franchise,  Act  of,  1884,  the,  256 

extension  of  the,  Labouchere  on, 

229,  244-46, 248.  Ste  also  Suffrage 

Law  for  the  Transvaal,  442, 

448-49 

Franckfort,  Bismarck  in,  52,  53; 
Labouchere  as  attach^  in,  52,  54, 
60,69,  119 


INDEX 


549 


Franco-Prussian  War,  116,  191;  La- 
bouchere's  correspondence  during, 
43-44,  96,  1 19-41 

Freehold  Land  Society,  its  work  in 
Northampton,  143 

Freeman's  Journal,  the  correspond- 
ence between  Egan  and  Pigott  in, 

375 
Free  Trade  for  Ireland,  Davitt  on, 

256-57. 
French,  journalism  during  the  siege 

of  Pans,  Labpuchere  on,  133-36 

wars,  allusions  to,  287,  296 

Froisard,  General,  defeat  of  his  Army 

Corps,  124 

GALVESTON,  Healy  in,  310 
Gambetta,  member  of  the  Republican 

Government,  127 
Gambling,   Labouchere's  system  in, 

65-66 

Garter,  Order  of  the,  241 
Gaulois,  its  address  to  the  Prussians, 

134 

Gave,  the  river,  I 
Gedge,  Mr.,  tries  to  do  Labouchere 

out  of  his  seat  in  the  House,  527 
Genealogist,     The,    the    Labouchere 

pedigree,  14  n. 
Genoa,  Labouchere  and  Dumas  at, 

"3 

George  III.,  296;  at  Kew,  409 
George  V. .  his  installation  as  K.G.,  246 
George,    Mr.,    his    scheme    for    the 

nationalisation  of  land,  235 
German,  Empire,  its  proposed  inter- 
vention in    Egypt,    194;    position 
of  Bavaria  in,  488;  Socialism  in, 
487 

people,  Labouchere's  dislike  of, 

5L52 

Zollverein,  principle  of  the,  294 

Gibbon,  Edward,  88,151 
Gibraltar,  English  tenure  of,  199 
Gibson,  M.P.,  Mr.,  150 
Giffen.  Mr.,  quoted,  470,  485 
Girondists,  the,  compared  with  the 

Irish  Nationalists,  293 
Gladstone,  Mrs.,  282 
Gladstone,  Herbert,  Lord,  Chamber- 
lain on,  265;  negotiates  between  his 
father    and    Labouchere,    214-17, 
261-303,  312-55 

Gladstone,  William  Ewart,  407;  his 
Egyptian  policy,  71,  189,  190, 
194-219;  his  first  administration, 
85,  86,  136  n.;  his  position  in  the 
Bradlaugh  case,  148,  151-55,  158, 


160;  his  tribute  to  Bradlaugh,  160- 
61;  Labouchere  dubs  him  "Grand 
Old  Man,"  158;  opposes  coercive 
measures  in  Ireland,  165,  166,  173- 
75,  225,  236,  238;  Labouchere's 
admiration  of,  171,  176;  adopts 
coercive  measures  in  Ireland,  175- 
189;  his  second  administration, 
194,  297;  rebukes  Labouchere, 
219;  Chamberlain  regarded  as  the 
successor  of,  225,  227,  249,  281, 
318,  321,  348;  his  resignation  in 
1885,  251;  his  Irish  policy  prior 
to  the  Home  Rule  Bill,  252-320, 
361;  in  Norway,  257;  Labouchere 
on  his  motives  in  the  Irish  ques- 
tion, 262,  281,  288,  298,  304, 
308,  3.13,  3i8,  326,  329,  419;  his 
capacity  for  mystification,  265, 
278,  283,  335,  347,  350;  his  third 
administration,  269  n.,  283,  315, 
31?  *+•  357;  submits  Home  Rule 
scheme  to  the  Queen,  270,  287 
n.,  288;  Healy  on,  272,  274,  283- 
86,  290,  303,  314,  315,  361-63; 
Parnell  on,  278;  his  desire  for 
office,  281-82,  288;  his  letters  to 
Balfour  re  Home  Rule,  289,  298; 
Chamberlain  on,  298-300, 326, 334- 
35.  340,  342,  346;  his  popularity, 
3°5»  35i;  Chamberlain  secedes 
from,  318-355 ;  introduces  the  Land 
Bill,  321;  his  first  Home  Rule  Bill, 
319-357,  4U,  4i6,  419,  420;  his 
letters  to  Labouchere  re  the  Triple 
Alliance,  411;  his  fourth  adminis- 
tration, 412,  420,  423;  his  letters 
to  Labouchere  re  his  exclusion  from 
his  Cabinet,  412-18;  his  second 
Home  Rule  Bill,  421,  422,  528; 
his  final  view  of  the  House  of  Lords, 
422-23;  his  retirement,  96  n.,  274, 

315,354 

Glasgow,  Chamberlain  at,  323 

Home  Government  Association 

of,  156 

Globe,  its  interview  with  Labouchere 
on  the  fall  of  Rosebery's  Ministry, 
424;  publishes  the  Cyprus  Con- 
vention, 192 

Godin,  Stephen  Peter,  14  n. 

Gold  fields  of  South  Africa,  427 

Goldney,  M.P.,  Sir  Gabriel,  146,  150 

Gonesse,  140 

Goodenough,  Sir  William,  death  of, 

437 

Gordon,  Colonel  Bill,  his  conversa- 
tion on  Egypt,  72 


550 


INDEX 


Gordon,  General,  72;  Arabi  on,  222; 
as  Governor-General  of  the  Sou- 
dan, 209;  his  death  at  Khartoum, 
212-15 

Gordon,  Sir  Arthur,  222 

Gorst,  Sir  John,  Healy  on,  284;  op- 
poses Gladstone's  motion  in  favour 
of  Bradlaugh,  155 

Gortschakoff,  Prince,  at  the  Berlin 
Congress,  192 

Goschen,  Viscount,  negotiates  with 
Hartington,  281,  282,  297,  348; 
on  the  Coercion  Bill,  185;  returned 
for  Edinburgh,  265;  unpopularity 
of,  262 

Goschen-Joubert  arrangement  with 
Egypt,  the,  191,  206 

Gosling,  Sir  Audley,  his  reminiscences 
of  Labouchere,  39,  65,  65  ». 

Got,  of  the  Come'die  Francaise,  120 

Graduated  Income  Tax,  the,  Labou- 
chere on,  246,  247 

Graham,  General,  his  command  in 
the  Soudanese  War,  213,  219 

Graham,  W.,  counsel  for  the  Times, 

374  »• 

Grant,  Parliamentary  agent  at  Wind- 
sor, 75 

Grantham,  M.P.,  Mr.,  146,  150 

Granville,  Lord,  121;  consulted  by 
Gladstone  re  Arabi,  204;  denies 
responsibility  for  the  defeat  of 
Hicks  Pasha,  209 

Grattan,  his  Parliament,  254,  258, 306 

Gravelotte,  battle  of,  124 

Greeks,  Labouchere  on  the,  191,  496 

Green,  Paddy,  waiterat  Evans',  29, 70 

Greene,  Conynghame,  British  agent 
at  Pretoria,  442-43,  444 

Gregory,  Sir  William,  his  interest  in 
Arabi,  221 

Grenville,  Lord,  ministry  of,  6-7 

Grey,  Albert,  his  amendment  of  the 
Church  Patronage  Bill,  243 

Grey,  Lord,  director  of  the  British 
South  Africa  Company,  428;  min- 
istry of,  6-7 

Griffiths,  his  valuations  in  the  Land 
Court,  181 

Grosvenor,  Captain,  M.P.,  for  West- 
minster, 80 

Grosvenor,  Lord  Richard,  Govern- 
ment Whip,  146;  Healy  on,  314; 
Labouchere  on,  305,  315,  316;  on 
the  Coercion  Bill,  179,  180 

Guinness,  Lord,  Labouchere  on, 
239-40 

Guizot,  M.,  on  France,  292,  480 


HAAG,  FRJ&RES,  La  France  Protestante, 
i 

Habeas  Corpus  Act,  question  of  its 
suspension  in  Ireland,  165-70 

Hague,  The,  birth  of  P.-C.  Labou- 
chere at,  2 

Halliday,  dramatic  author,  99 

Hame,  General,  surrenders  Laon,  127 

Hamilton,  Lord  George,  his  election 
for  Middlesex  in  1868,  85-92 

Hammond,  Anthony,  19  n. 

Hanbury,  M.P.,  Robert,  death  of,  83 

Hannen,  Sir  James,  President  of  the 
Parnell  Commission,  373 

Hanover,  Crampton,  envoy  at,  45; 
Napoleon's  plans  for,  9 

Hansard,  speeches  of  Labouchere  in, 

197 

Harcourt,  Sir  William,  407;  at  his 
best  in  Opposition,  409,  424;  Healy 
on,  260,  274,  289;  his  Coercion  Bill, 
!7Oi  175>  1 80,  181,  184,  188;  Labou- 
chere on,  287,  313,  323,  334,  344; 
moves  a  new  Address,  425  n.;  on 
the  Michelstown  meeting,  365; 
sits  on  the  Committee  on  British 
South  Africa,  427 

Hardie,  Keir,  Labouchere  on,  533 

Harold,  Canon,  404 

Harper's  Magazine,  biographical 
sketch  of  Labouchere  in,  38 

Harrington,  312;  Healy  on,  276 

Harris,  Rutheiford,  director  of  the 
South  Africa  Company,  426 

Harrison,  Morley  on  his  Irish  scheme, 

309 

Harrow,  education  at,  42 

Hart  Davies,  Thomas,  visits  Labou- 
chere in  Florence,  535-37 

Hartington,  Lord,  as  Secretary  for 
War  questioned  on  the  Egyptian 
policy,  213,  214,  219,  220;  Cham- 
berlain on,  264,  270,  271,  286,  329; 
Churchill  on,  269,  281;  Goschen 
negotiates  with,  348;  Healy  on, 
260,  283,  363;  his  Irish  policy  prior 
to  the  Home  Rule  Bill,  257-98; 
his  meeting  re  Home  Rule,  344  n.; 
his  quarrel  with  Churchill,  278, 
282;  Labouchere  on  his  position 
in  the  Home  Rule  split,  268,  278, 
282,  287,  297,  304,  315,  318,  324, 
329,  344,  351;  Parnell  forgeries 
shown  to,  375,  406;  secedes  from 
the  Liberal  party,  228,  249 

Hastings,  Labouchere  at,  338,  339 

Hatfield,  Lord  R.  Churchill  at,  286, 
287 


INDEX 


551 


Hatton.     Joseph,     his    biographical 

sketch  of  Labouchere,  38,  40,  103 
Haussman,  M.,  126 
Havana,  31 
Ha  warden  Castle,  Gladstone  at,  301, 

415 

Manifesto,  issue  of  the,  257 

Hawkesley,  Mr.,  solicitor,  his  corre- 
spondence with  Chamberlain,  429 

«-.  452-53 

Hawtrey,  Dr.,  headmaster  of  Eton, 
18;  Labouchere  on,  20-21 

Healy,  Timothy  Michael,  agitates  for 
Home  Rule,  254-303;  Davitt  on, 
258;  his  amendments  of  the  Co- 
ercion Bill,  177,  179,  181,  185,  1 86; 
his  attack  on  Chamberlain's  arti- 
cle, 255  n. ;  his  letters  to  Labouchere 
re  coercive  measures  in  Ireland, 
361-64;  his  letters  to  Labouchere 
re  Home  Rule,  252,  256,  259-60, 
271-72,  273-74,  283-85,  289-90, 
301-3.  309-15;  on  Parnell,  253-54, 
266,  280 

Heath,  Labour  candidate  for  Notting- 
ham, 93 

Heim,  Van  Der,  Dutch  statesman,  6 

Heine,  Heinrich,  538 

Herbert,  Dr.  Alan,  in  Paris  during 
the  siege,  120 

Herbert,  Edward,  at  Constantinople, 

63 

Herschell,  Farrer,  his  mediation  views 
on  the  Home  Rule  question,  338, 
340-43.  347 ;  Solicitor-General,  146, 
150,  186 

Hesse  family,  the,  54 

Hibbert,  John  Tomlinson,  76  n. 

Hicks  Beach,  Sir  Michael,  as  Chief 
Secretary  for  Ireland,  357;  Ban- 
nerman  on,  455;  Churchill's  scheme 
for,  270;  his  Amendment  of  the 
Budget  Bill,  251;  on  the  Select 
Committee  on  British  South  Africa, 

427 
Hicks  Pasha,  defeat  and  death  of, 

210-11,  213,  214 
Hill.  Dr.  Birkbeck,  contributes  to  the 

World,  107 
Hill,    Frank,    editor    of    the    Daily 

News,  06,  286 

Hill,  M.P.,  Stayeley,  146,  150 
Hillyer,  Mrs.,  sister  of  Henry  Labou- 
chere, 17  n. 
Hoare,  Sir  Henry,  contests  Windsor 

and  is  unseated,  75-82 
Hodson,   Henrietta,  appears  at  the 

New  Queen's  Theatre,  99;  Labou- 


chere's  letters  from  Paris  to,  129. 
See  Mrs.  Labouchere. 

Holborn  Casino,  the,  105 

Holker,  M.P.,  Sir  John,  146,  150 

Holland,  invasion  of,  4;  Louis  Buon- 
aparte as  king  of,  4-9 

Homburg,  Labouchere  at,  54,  65,  69, 
72,95,  119,  242,419,  525 

Home  Rule  Bill,  introduction  of,  527; 
Labouchere  on, 167,  189, 225, 236- 
39,  508,  521.  See  also  Ireland. 

Home  Rule  Split,  the,  its  effect  on 
Labouchere,  227 

Hope,  M.P.,  Beresford,  146,  150 

Hope,  house  of,  its  dealings  with 
America,  15;  John  Peter  Labou- 
chere as  a  partner  in,  16;  P.-C. 
Labouchere  as  a  partner  in,  2-5 

Hope,  John,  takes  P.-C.  Labouchere 
into  partnership,  2 

Hopwood,  M.P.,  Mr.,  member  of 
Select  Committee  on  Bradlaugh 
case,  146,  150 

House  of  Lords,  abolition  of  the, 
advocated  by  Labouchere,  226, 
230-33.  238-42 

Household  Suffrage  Act,  the,  its 
effect  in  Northampton,  143 

Houston,  E.  C.,  his  purchase  of 
letters  from  Pigott,  375,  380,  385, 
386,  389,  306,  405 

Howard,  Lady  Mary,  her  marriage, 

14 

Hudson,  Sir  James,  English  Minister 
at  Turin,  61 

Hugessen,  Mr.  Knatchbull-,  Labou- 
chere on,  239 

Hungarians,  English  enthusiasm  for, 
284 

Hunter,  Mr.,  in  Hyde  Park,  363 

Hyde  Park,  demonstration  against 
the  Coercion  Bill  in,  363;  Labou- 
chere on,  84 

Hylands,  P.-C.  Labouchere  settles  at, 

13 

Hyndman,  Mr.,  defends  Socialism 
against  Labouchere  at  North- 
ampton, 459-90 


IDDESLEIGH,  LORD.     See  Northcote, 

Sir  Stafford. 

Illingworth,  Radical  M.P.,  345 
Illinois,  educational  system  of,  42 
Imperial  Parliament,  Labouchere  on 

an,  293,  299-301,  304,  336,  422 
South  African  Association,  the, 

436 


552 


INDEX 


Income  Tax,  the,  Labouchere  on, 
207,  246,  249,  466 

Independence  Beige,  429  n. 

India,  English  rule  in,  135;  Labou- 
chere on,  197,  201,  204 

Individualism  v.  Collectivism,  dis- 
cussed by  Labouchere  and  Hynd- 
man,  464,  465,  480,  487 

Industrial  Commission  of  South 
Africa,  447 

International  Law,  studied  by  La- 
bouchere, 8 1 

Ipswich,  Labouchere  at,  333 

Ireland,  agriculture  in,  292 ;  Church- 
ill in,  283,  289;  disestablishment 
of  the  Anglican  Church  in,  86,  88; 
Labouchere's  political  sympathy 
for,  72,  225,  247,  248,  508,  521, 
523;  landlordism  in,  261,  264-65, 
276,  292,  361-62;  Protection  in, 
258,  261,  276-77;  question  of  co- 
ercive measures  in,  165-89,  225, 

251-52,313.  318-19,  329.  358-72; 
question  of  Home  Rule  for,  167, 
189,  225,  236-39,  416-17,  419, 
421-22,  508,  521,  523;  correspond- 
ence on,  250-356;  secret  societies 
in,  171,  177 

Irish  Nationalist  party,  the,  266,  293 ; 
Conservative  advances  to,  251, 
252;  English  feeling  against,  165- 
66,  175,  240-41,  258,  285-86 

patriots  in  Boston,  Labouchere 

among,  47,  48 

police  force,  Labouchere  on, 

276,  292, 316 

Privy  Council,  Labouchere  on, 

276,  277,  282,  294 

Irish  World,  The,  310 

Irishman,  Parnell's  purchase  of  the, 

3.74 
Irving,   Sir   Henry,   appears  at  the 

New    Queen's   Theatre,    99,    102; 

mistaken  for  the  defeated  candi- 
date at  Brentford,  92 
Irwin,  District  Police  Inspector,  370 
Ismail,   Khedive,   his  claim   on  the 

Soudan,   209;  his  rule  in  Egypt, 

190-95.  209 
Ismail  Bey  Jowdat,  W.  S.  Blunt  on, 

215.  216 

Ismail  Sadyk,  murder  of,  193 
Ismailia,  Lord  Wolseley  at,  208 
Italian-Turkish  War,  the,  538 
Italian  unity,  England's  support  of, 

284 
Italy,  England's  relations  with,  in  the 

Triple  Alliance,  410,  411 


JACKSON,  MR.,  427 

Jackson,  M.P.,  Sir  Henry,  146,  150 

Jacobin  party,  the,  293 

Jamal-ed  Din,  Sezzed,  W.  S.  Blunt 
on, 216 

James,  of  Hereford,  Henry,  Lord, 
351 ;  Attorney-General,  146,  148, 
150;  counsel  for  the  Times,  374  n. ; 
his  letter  to  Labouchere  re  retire- 
ment, 525 

Jameson,  Dr.,  history  of  his  Raid, 
426-36,  438,  452,  454 

Jerrold,  Douglas,  at  Evans',  29 

Jerusalem,  Labouchere  at,  ill,  112 

Jeyes,  S.  H.,  Mr.  Chamberlain,  189 

Joan  of  Arc,  244 

Johannesburg,  capture  of,  454;  griev- 
ances of  Englishmen  in,  426,  427, 

43I~34,  442,  443,  45* 

Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  Life  of,  29; 
quoted,  108 

Jordan,  the,  Labouchere  at  the 
source  of,  112 

Joubert,  his  arrangement  with  Go- 
schen, 191 

Journalistic  London,  by  Joseph  Hat- 
ton,  38,  104  n. 

Jowdat,  Ismail  Bey,  W.  S.  Blunt  on, 
216 

Justice,  474 

KENSIT,    JOHN,    his    action    against 

Labouchere,  500 
KeYatry,  Prefect  of  Police,  127 
Kerry,  Buller  in,  361 ,  362 
Kew  Bridge,  Labouchere  at,  91 

Palace,  Labouchere  on,  409 

Khalil  Pasha,  outwitted  at  whist,  58 
Khartoum,   72;  Gordon  at,  212-14; 

the  Mahdi  at,  216 
Khedival  Domains  Loan,  the,  193 
Khedives,  rule  of  the,  193-200,  205, 

207-8,  224 
Kidderminster,  525 
Kilkenny,  265 

Kilmainham   Gaol,  Parnell's  impris- 
onment in,  172-74,  187,  276,  372 
Kimberley,  relief  of,  441 
Kinglake,    W.,    his   history    of    the 

Crimean  War,  62 
Kingstown,   Pigott's  home  at,  376, 

402 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  his  Lest  We  Forget 

parodied,  448 

Kirkcaldy,  Campbell  M.P.  for,  208 
Kitawber,  Labouchere  joins  a  circus 

at,  39 
Kolli,  Baron,  police  agent,  10 


INDEX 


553 


Kordofan,  the  Mahdi  at,  209 
Kruger,  President  of  the  Transvaal, 
435.  442,  446,  448.  453 

LABOUCHERE,  HENRY,  his  inherit- 
ance from  his  uncle,  14,  250;  his 
recollections  of  Talleyrand,  14; 
mistaken  for  a  son  of  Lord  Taun- 
ton,  15;  his  love  for  America,  14-1 5, 
41-42, 44, 225;  his  birth  and  educa- 
tion, 16-22,  491;  his  alleged  crib- 
bing at  Cambridge,  22-27;  his  pro- 
pensity for  gambling,  22,  29,  30,  35, 
47.  55.  6*-66,  70,  491,  514;  his  lite 
at  Evans  ,  28-3 1 , 70;  at  Wiesbaden, 
30;  travels  in  South  America,  31-38, 
496;  follows  a  circus,  39,  40,  491; 
lives  with  the  Chippeway  Indians, 
40-41,  45;  imbibes  Radicalism  in 
America,  41,  226;  as  attache1  at 
various  embassies,  53-60,  66,  69, 
412,  491;  lives  in  Florence  during 
his  appointment  to  Parana,  60-62; 
as  Secretary  in  Constantinople, 
62;  elected  for  Windsor  and  un- 
seated, 75-83;  as  M.P.  for  Middle- 
sex, 83-93;  his  protests  against 
extravagant  finance,  84,  246-47, 
409;  contests  Nottingham,  93; 
his  proprietorship  of  the  Daily 
News,  95,  492;  his  managership  of 
the  New  Queen's  Theatre,  08-104, 
491,  496;  as  financial  editor  of  the 
World,  1 06,  491,  492;  his  editor- 
ship of  Truth,  no,  117,  492- 
512:  visits  the  Holy  Land  with 
Bcllew,  IH-I2,  496;  his  reminis- 
cences of  Dumas,  113-14;  his  curi- 
osity as  a  journalist,  114-18;  his 
lawsuits,  117, 500-2 ;  his  experiences 
in  Paris  during  the  siege,  43,  96, 
1 06,  1 19-41 ;  as  member  for  North- 
ampton, 142  et  seq.;  his  support 
of  Brad  laugh,  144-64;  opposes 
coercion  in  Ireland,  166-90,  225, 
363-64;  his  Egyptian  policy,  ig(r- 
204,  205-20;  his  defence  of  Arabi, 
203,  204-5,  2°7.  220-26;  his  con- 
ception of  Radical  government, 
225-49,  530-34;  his  admiration 
for  Chamberlain,  225-26;  his  Par- 
liamentary influence,  250,  520, 
521 ;  negotiates  between  the  Irish 
party  and  the  Liberals,  252-356, 
42 1-22 ;  see  also  under  Chamberlain, 
Gladstone,  Hartington,  Parnell, 
etc.;  at  Twickenham,  356;  at 
Michclstown,  365-71 ;  discovers 


Pigott's  forgeries,  360,  371-406; 
hoaxes  practised  on,  406-8 ;  at  his 
best  in  Opposition,  409,  423;  on 
the  Triple  Alliance,  410,  418;  his 
exclusion  from  the  Cabinet  in 
1892,  412-18,  527;  at  Cadenabbia, 
418-21,  423.  515,  533-34:  "«  desire 
to  become  Minister  at  Washington, 
423;  his  opposition  to  Lord  Kose- 
bery's  administration,  423,  424; 
his  report  on  the  Jameson  Raid , 
426-32;  on  the  Chartered  Com- 
pany of  British  South  Africa,  431- 
34;  opposes  the  Boer  War,  438- 
457 ;  discusses  Socialism  with  Hynd  - 
man  at  Northampton,  459-90; 
his  chief  characteristics,  496-499, 
512-15;  his  retirement  and  home 
at  Florence,  517-36;  his  appoint- 
ment as  Privy  Councillor,  523, 
St6,  530-31 ;  on  the  seating  of  the 
ouse  of  Commons,  527-30;  his 
death  and  burial,  536-40 

Labouchere,  He»ry,  son  of  Pierre- 
Ce'sar,  his  political  career,  13-15. 
See  Taunton,  Baron 

Labouchere,  John  Peter,  father  of 
Henry,  14,  16;  his  death,  130  n.; 
visits  his  son  at  Cambridge,  27 

Labouchere,  Rev.  John,  21  n. 

Labouchere,  Matthieu,  2 

Labouchere,  Mrs.,  mother  of  Henry, 
letters  from  Paris  to,  128  n.,  130, 
138 

Labouchere,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Henry,  at 
the  New  Queen's  Theatre,  99; 
death  of,  535 

Labouchere,  Pierre-Cesar,  grand- 
father of  Henry,  his  partnership 
in  the  house  of  Hope,  2-5;  his 
portrait,  2  n.;  his  two  sons,  13,  16; 
negotiates  for  peace  between  Eng- 
land and  France,  4-12;  restores 
French  credit,  12,  13 

Labour  party,  rise  of  the,  518,  531 

Labour  r.  Capital,  discussed  by  Hynd- 
man  and  Labouchere  at  North- 
ampton, 460-90 

La  Bruyere,  on  married  life,  93 

Ladies'  Land  League,  work  of  the, 
173,  186 

Ladysmith,  relief  of,  440-41 

Lambri  Pasha,  150 

Lancashire  opposes  Home  Rule,  280 

Land  Bill,  the,  159,  421-22;  amend- 
ments of,  187;  Cham  bet  lain  on. 
329;  Labouchere  on,  292,  318.  320, 
332 ;  Hcaly  on,  309;  rejection  of,  357 


554 


INDEX 


Land  League,  the,  establishes  Boy- 
cotting, 165;  its  "no  Rent"  mani- 
festo, 172;  its  suppression,  172-75; 
its  useful  functions,  171,  358  n.; 
prosecution  of,  166;  the  Times  on, 
360,  382;  two  sections  of,  182,  186 

Land  system,  English,  Labouchere 
on  the,  231,  234,  235,  241 

Landlordism  in  Ireland,  Labouchere 
on,  276,  292,  295,  318 

Laon,  Prussian  army  at,  127 

Lascelles,  Sir  Frank,  announces  the 
deposition  of  Ismail,  194 

Last,  Parliamentary  agent  at  Wind- 
sor, 76,  8 1 

Last  Days  of  Pompeii,  produced  at 
the  New  Queen's  Theatre,  100 

Latham,  examiner  at  Cambridge,  24 

Lausanne,  Pigott  at,  385 

Lawley,  Frank,  correspondent  in 
Paris  during  the  siege,  120,  138  n., 
140 

Lawson,  Lionel,  at  Evans',  29 

Lawson,  Mr.  Justice,  277 

Lawson,  Sir  Wilfrid,  his  amendment 
seconded  by  Labouchere,  205,  213; 
his  letter  to  Labouchere,  re  retire- 
ment, 524-25;  seconds  Labou- 
chere's resolution  against  the 
House  of  Lords,  241 

Laycock,  contests  Nottingham,  93 

Leech,  John,  at  Evans',  29 

Leeds,  Balfour  at,  524;  Herbert 
Gladstone  at,  263 

Leeds  Mercury  on  Home  Rule,  256; 
publishes  Gladstone's  Home  Rule 
scheme,  277  n. 

Lefevre,  Shaw,  266;  Labouchere  on, 
200-1 

Legislation,  the  technique  of,  Labou- 
chere on, 229 

Leicester,  Chamberlain  at,  270 

Lennox,  Lord  Henry,  his  opposition 
to  Bradlaugh,  146,  150,  156 

Levi,  Leone,  quoted  by  Labouchere, 
470,  484 

Lewis,  Sir  George,  as  solicitor  to 
Labouchere,  108,  501,  510;  as 
solicitor  to  Parnell,  375-79,  386-89, 
393-98;  his  death,  536 

Liberal,  party,  its  breach  with  the 
Irish,  172,  179,  187,  252-53;  its 
policy  in  Egypt,  190,  194-224; 
its  treatment  of  Gladstone,  284 

Unionist  party,  the,  422; 

Chamberlain  joins,  228 

Licences,  Brewers',  Labouchere  on, 
83 


Life  of  Parnell,  O'Brien's,  174 
Limited  Liability  Companies,  Labou- 

chere  on,  465-67 
Lincoln,  Mass.,  Egan  at,  381 
Linton,  Mrs.  Lynn,  on  the  staff  of  the 

World,  107 

Lobengula,  raid  on  King,  433 
Local  Government,  Chamberlain  on, 
264,    265,    311;    Labouchere    on, 
167,  265 

Lockwood,  Mark,  455 
London,  death-rate  of,  463,  482-83; 
Ismail  Bey  Jowdat  in,  216;  Labou- 
chere's  homes  in:  Albany,  78; 
Bolton  Street,  no,  116;  Hamilton 
Place,  13-14;  Old  Palace  Yard, 
39,  224;  Portland  Place,  16; 
Queen  Anne's  Gate,  71,  158,  177; 
Labouchere's  knowledge  of,  104, 
105;  P.-C.  Labouchere's  mission  in, 

4 
Londonderry,    Lord,  as    Viceroy  of 

Ireland,  357 

Long,  quoted  by  Hyndman,  481 
Louis  XIV.,  religious  persecutions  of, 

i 

Louis  XVIII.,  his  ministers,  12 
Louis  of  Bavaria,  King,  in  Munich, 

49 

Lowe,  Mr.,  his  clause  in  the  Public 
Schools  Bill,  84 

Lowther,  James,  his  Irish  policy, 
176,  178 

Lucy,  Sir  Henry,  More  Passages  by 
the  Way,  3  n.;  on  Labouchere's 
political  influence,  250;  on  Labou- 
chere's retirement,  526,  527;  on 
the  staff  of  the  World,  107,527; 
The  Balfourian  Parliament,  440 

Lugard,  Captain,  in  Uganda,  421 

Lumley,  Augustus,  cotillon  leader  in 
St.  Petersburg,  57 

Lush,  Lord  Justice,  his  judgment 
against  Bradlaugh,  157 

Lydon,  John  and  Margaret,  168,  169 

Lying  Clubs,  Labouchere  on,  117-18 

Lynch,  Quested,  in  Paris,  during  the 
siege,  138  n. 

Lyons,   Lord,   in   Paris  and  Tours, 

121 

Lyons,  M.P.,  Dr.,  on  the  membership 

for  Northampton,  149 
Lyre,  The,  proposed  title  for  Truth, 

493 

Lytton,  Lord,  his  information  re  the 
Berlin  Congress,  192  n. 

MAAMTRASNA,  affair  of,  263 


INDEX 


555 


M'Carthy,  Justin,  Churchill  on,  279, 
286;  Daily  News  Jubilee,  128  n.; 
Healy  on,  276;  his  defence  of 
Arabi,  196;  on  the  staff  of  the 
Daily  News,  279 

M'Carthy,  Rev.  Mr.,  at  Michelstown 
366 

McCulloch,  Mr.,  quoted,  408 

McCurdy,  C.  A.,  on  Labouchere  and 
Bradlaugh,  162-63 

Macdonald,  Diary  of  the  Parnell 
Commission,  quoted,  383  n.,  384  n., 
393  n.,  402 

McKinley,  President,  439 

Macmahon,  Marshal,  at  Metz,  123-24 

Madelin,  Louis,  Fouche,  ion. 

Madras,  221 

Madrid,  British  Embassy  in,  83; 
Pigott's  suicide  in,  401,  405 

Magersfontein,  445 

Maguire,  Mr.,  428 

Mahdi,  the,  rebellion  of,  208-20 

Malet,  Sir  Alexander,  British  repre- 
sentative at  the  Diet  of  Frankfort, 
55,69 

Malet,  Sir  Edward,  69;  as  Consul- 
General  in  Egypt,  209 

Mallet,  T.  L.,  his  journal,  13  n. 

Malta,  negotiations  for  the  possession 
of,  8;  reinforcement  of  its  garri- 
son, 197 

Malthusianism,  Bradlaugh's  views 
on,  144;  Hyndman  on,  460 

Manchester,  97;  Chamberlain  at, 
323;  death-rate  of,  463 

Manchester  Guardian  on  Home  Rule, 
256 

Manning,  Cardinal,  supports  Brad- 
laugh,  156 

If. A. P.,  117;  on  Labouchere's  re- 
tirement, 521  n. 

Marburg,  Labouchere  in,  59,  60 

Marcy,  Mr.,  American  Secretary  of 
State,  his  love  of  whist,  49 

Marie  Louise,  Empress,  her  marriage, 

4,5 

Marienbad,  Campbell  Bannerman  at, 
455 ;  Labouchere  at,  526 

Marseillaise,  the,  127  n. 

Marshall,  Alfred,  Principles  of  Econo- 
mics, quoted,  482 

Marvin,  translator  of  the  Cyprus 
Convention,  192 

Marx,  Carl,  quoted  by  Hyndman, 
481 

Maryborough  prison,  384 

Mashonaland,  occupation  of,  433 

Massey,  W.  H.,  M.P.,  146,  150 


Matabele  War,  the,  433,  434 

Matthew,  Mr.  Justice,  his  judgment 
against  Bradlaugh,  157 

Matthews,  Mr.,  counsel,  76  n. 

Maxau,  122  n. 

Maxwell,  Sit  Benson,  superintends 
Egyptian  tribunals,  209 

Maxwell,  Sir  William  of  Monteith,   16 

May,  Sir  Thomas  Erskine,  Clerk  of 
the  House,  145 

Mayo,  Lord  his  English  agent,  165 

Meagher,  Irish  patriot,  Labouchere 
mistaken  for,  48 

Medicine,  Labouchere's  interest  in 
the  science  of,  60,  507 

Melbourne,  Lord,  his  laissez-faire 
policy,  229;  ministry  of,  13;  on 
the  Garter,  241 

Meredith,  George,  Richard  Feverel, 
522 

Merewether,  lawyer,  contests  Nor- 
thampton, 144 

Merivale,  Herman,  his  anecdote  of 
Labouchere  and  his  uncle,  82;  his 
Time  and  the  Hour  produced  at  the 
New  Queen's  Theatre,  98, 99 

Mersey,  Lord,  428 

Metz,  Napoleon  III.  at,  122  n.,  123 

Mexico,  Labouchere  in,  32-38,  72, 
loo,  496 

Michael  Angelo,  Labouchere  modern- 
ises the  villa  of,  72 

Michelstown,  police  charge  at,  365- 

7° 
Middlesex,   Labouchere   as   member 

for  in  1867,  83-86,  99,  143;  Labou- 
chere contests  unsuccessfully  in 
1868,85-93,525 

Middlesex  Coal  Dues,  the,  Labou- 
chere on,  85 

Miiwel  el  Mizrab,  Sheykh,  72 
Milan,  decree  of,  9 
Military  Knights  of  Windsor,  Labou- 
chere on,  83 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  quoted,  247,  481, 

482 

Miller,  Joaquin,  40 
Milner,   Alfred,    Lord,   as   Commis- 
sioner for  South  Africa,  435,  442; 
as  Governor  of  Cape  Colony,  437, 
442,   445,  448,   456;   his   England 
tn  Egypt  quoted,  210 
Minneapolis,  Labouchere  at,  41 
Mississippi  steamboats,  the,  106 
Modern  Egypt,  Lord  Cromer's,  213 
Mohamed  Ahmed.     See  Mahdi 
Moliere,  Marie- Madeleine,  2 
Mollerus,  Dutch  statesman,  6 


556 


INDEX 


Moltke,  rumour  of  his  death,  134 

Monarchy,  English,  Labouchere  on, 
230-31,  233,  242-43 

Mpncrieff ,  Colonel  Scott--,  directs  the 
irrigation  of  Egypt,  209 

Monson,  Sir  Edmund,  his  letter  to 
Labouchere  re  retirement,  526 

Mont  Blanc,  44 

Monteith,  Maxwell  of,  16 

Montes,  Lola,  49 

Montreal,  Healy  at,  310 

Moonlighting  in  Ireland,  173 

Moore,  Messrs.  Telbin  and,  98 

More's  Utopia,  489 

Morgan,  Osborne,  his  speeches  on 
Ireland,  260 

Morley,  Arnold,  his  mediation  on  the 
Home  Rule  question,  322,  334, 
338-43,  347;  part  proprietor  of 
the  Daily  News,  95 

Morley  of  Blackburn,  John,  Earl, 
Chamberlain  on,  299,  302,  326; 
Davitt  on,  257-58;  his  letters  to 
Labouchere  re  Home  Rule,  317, 
327 1  33 !;  his  Life  of  Gladstone 
quoted,  365  n.,  371,  382,  422;  his 
resignation,  325;  his  views  on 
Home  Rule,  309,  322,  329,  332, 
333;  Labouchere  on,  282,  324,  327; 
on  Gladstone's  Egyptian  policy, 
190;  opposes  coercion  in  Ireland,  1 73 

Morning  Post,  Bowles  correspondent 
in  Paris  of  the,  141  n.;  Grenvilel 
Murray  as  correspondent  of,  67; 
on  Labouchere's  retirement,  521-22 

"Moss,  Moses,"  505 

Mott's  Foley  Street  rooms,  105 

Moulton,  Mr.  Gladstone's  letter  to, 

353 

Mountmorres,  Lord,  murder  of,  165 
Mudford,  journalist,  278 
Mulgrave,  Lord,  Viceroy  of  Ireland, 

251 

Mulhall,  Mr.,  statistician,  485 
Mundella,   Minister  for   Education, 

285 
Munich,  Labouchere  as  attache"  in, 

49,  50 
Murat,  Joachim,  as  King  of  Naples, 

8,9 

Murphy,  David,  cashier,  396 
Murphy,    Serjeant,   at   Evans',   29; 

counsel  for  the  Times,  374  n. 
Murray,    Grenville,    betrays    official 

secrets  in  the  Morning  Post,  67-68 ; 

his  action  against  Lord  Carrington, 

110  n.;  on  the  staff  of  the  World, 

109 


NANTES,  P.-C.  Labouchere  at,  2 
Napier,  Mr.,  his  defence  of  Arabi, 

222 

Naples,  kingdom  of,  8 

Napoleon  I.,  his  ideal  woman,  246; 

Labouchere  on,  480;  negotiates  tor 

peace  with  England,  5-12 
Napoleon  III.  at  Metz,  122  n.,  123- 

24;  his  imprisonment,  122,  124-25, 

126;  his  plan  of  campaign,  122  n., 

123 

Natal,  war  spirit  in,  437,  438,  449 
National,  debt,  Labouchere  on  the, 

475,  477 
income,    the,    Labouchere    on, 

46.5 

National  Reformer,  Bradlaugh 's  state- 
ment of  his  case  in  the,  146-47 

Nationalisation,  of  land,  Labouchere 
on  the,  235 

of  railways,  Labouchere  on, 

486,  487 

Navy,  Labouchere  on  the,  478 

Neutrality  Law,  Labouchere  on  the 
inadequacy  of  the  English,  8 1 

Newcastle,  478 

Newgate,  Labouchere's  description 
of,  114-15 

Newman,  Cardinal,  his  position  in 
regard  to  Bradlaugh,  156 

Newmarket,  Labouchere  at,  22 

New  Mexico,  Pueblas  of,  486 

New  Queen's  Theatre,  Labouchere 
as  manager  of,  98-104 

Newton,  Mr.,  censure  of,  428 

New  Windsor,  Labouchere's  election 
for,  75-82 

New  York,  106;  Healy  in,  310;  La- 
bouchere in,  41 

New  York  Herald,  382,  526 

Nice,  Labouchere  at,  95,  97 

Nicholas,  Emperor,  Lord  Stratford's 
hatred  of,  63 

Nicholson's  Nek,  440 

Nineteenth  Century,  Cardinal  Man- 
ning's article  in  the,  156 

Nolan,  M.P.,  Colonel,  146,  150;  his 
returns,  302 

Nolte,  Vincent,  his  reminiscences  of 
P.-C.  Labouchere,  3,  4  n. 

Nonconformists,  their  anti-Irish  feel- 
ing, 306 

Norfolk,  Labouchere  in,  22 

Norman,  Henry,  278 

North  Briton,  164 

North  Camberwell,  Labouchere  at, 
247 

Northampton,    Bradlaugh    returned 


INDEX 


557 


Northampton — Continued 
for,    142-45,    149,    151-52,     1571 
Hyndman    at,    459;    industrialism 
of,    462,    467;    Labouchere,  M.P. 
for,  14,  105,  106,  116,  142-45,  148- 
49.I58,  159,161,167,225,410,415- 
I8,   459,   465,   503;    Labouchere's 
retirement  from,  518-527;  Liberal 
and  Radical  Association,  its  tribute 
to  Labouchere,  539-40 
Northampton  Echo  quoted,  162 
Northampton   Mercury  quoted,    143, 

Nortnbrook,  Lord,  13  n. 

Northcote,  Sir  Stafford,  his  motion 
against  Bradlaugh,  146,  152-55; 
his  motion  on  the  Egyptian  policy, 
213 

Norway,  Gladstone  in,  257 

Nottingham,  contested  by  Labou- 
chere, 93 

Nubar,  his  Premiership,  193-94 

O'BwEN,  R.  BARRY,  his  articles  on 
the  Irish  question,  257;  his  Life 
of  Lord  Russell  of  Killowen,  391  n. ; 
his  Life  of  Parnell  quoted,  252  n., 
257  n.;  on  the  murder  of  Lord  F. 
Cavendish,  174-75 
O'Brien,  Smith,  his  Irish  rising,  48 
O'Brien,   W.,   312;   Healy  on,   276, 

£63;  his  influence  in  Ireland,  533; 
is  Irish  policy,  256 

O'Connor,  John,  at  Michelstown,  365 

O'Connor,  Mrs.  T.  P.,  her  reminis- 
cence of  Labouchere  among  the 
Indians,  40-41 

O'Connor,  T.  P.,  on  the  Coercion  Bill, 
178;  on  Labouchere's  retirement, 
520-21;  supports  the  Tories  re 
Home  Rule,  261,  266 

Odessa,  Grcnville  Murray  as  Consul 
at,  68, 1 10 

O'Donnell,  F.  H.,  his  case  against 
the  Times,  372-74,  392 

O'Donoghue,  The,  on  Labouchere,  169 

O'Kelly,  James,  Pigott  forgeries  of 
his  letters,  386,  394,  396 

Ollivier,  French  Premier,  resignation 
of,  124 

Onslow,  M.P.,  David,  146 

Oppenheim,  Henry,  287;  part  pro- 
prietor of  the  Daily  News,  95 

Orange  Free  State,  annexation  of  the, 

445,  449,  454,  456 
Orangemen  oppose  Home  Rule,  291, 

294,345 
Orinoco,  s.s.,  31 


Orthez,  home  of  the  Labouchere 
family,  i 

Orton,  Arthur,  dines  with  Labou- 
chere, 116 

O'Shea,  Captain,  Healy  on,  276;  his 
supposed  share  in  the  forged  letters, 
373,  381;  negotiates  between  Par- 
nell and  Gladstone,  173 

O'Shea,  J.  Augustus,  correspondent 
in  Pans  dunng  the  siege,  141  n. 

Osman  Digna  captures  Tokar,  213 

Ostrogotha,  Duchess  of,  her  baby's 
birth,  53 

Otrante,  Due  d'.     See  Fouche". 

Ouvrard,  tool  of  Fouche",  10-12 

Oxford,  Henry  Labouchere  the  elder 
at,  13 

PALIKAO,  COUNT,  French  Premier, 
124 

Poll  Mall  Gazette,  Bingham  corre- 
spondent in  Paris  for,  141  n. ;  in- 
spired by  Gladstone,  278;  Mor- 
ley's  editorship  of,  173;  refuses 
Pigott  forgeries,  375,  406;  Stead's 
letter  in,  411;  W.  S.  Blunt's  de- 
fence of  Arabi  in,  222 

Palmerston,  Lord,  46  n.;  his  agree- 
ment with  Murray,  67-68 

Palmyra,  Labouchere  at,  72 

Palto  at  Twickenham,  356 

Parana,  Republic  of,  Labouchere's 
appointment  to,  60 

Pans,  British  Embassy  in,  83,  120; 
death  of  Grenville  Murray  in, 
no  n.;  headquarters  of  the  Land 
League  in,  172,  181,  182,  186; 
Labouchere  in,  30,  31;  Labou- 
chere's letters  to  London  during 
the  siege  of,  43,  44,  96,  106,  119, 
124-41;  Louis  Buonaparte  in,  8; 
Parnell  letters  in,  385,  386,  389; 
P.-C.  Labouchere  summoned  by 
Napoleon  to,  1 1-12;  Pigott  in,  394- 
95,  396,  401;  public  parks  of,  84; 
Queen  Christina  in,  245 

Parish  Councils  Bill,  the,  422,  479 

Parliament,  House  of  Commons, 
extravagance  of,  410;  payment 
of  members  of,  229,  230;  reasons 
for  entering,  74;  seating  accom- 
modation of,  527-30;  triennial 
election  of,  229,  2d8 

Parliament,  House  of  Lords,  abolition 
of,  226,  230-33,  238-42,  248,  417. 
422,  425  n,  527,  531-34:  its  ob- 
struction of  the  Home  Rule  Bill, 
290 


558 


INDEX 


Parliamentary,  journalist,  Labou- 
chere  as,  504 

Oaths  Act,  the,  its  bearing  in  the 

case  of  Bradlaugh,  145,  151,  155, 
157,  160 

Parnell,  Charles  Stewart,  speaks  in 
favour  of  Bradlaugh,  153;  as 
president  of  the  Land  League,  165, 
1 66,  177,  182,  358  n.',  his  imprison- 
ment and  release,  172-74,  252,  254; 
his  position  as  Irish  leader  during 
the  Home  Rule  struggle,  173-189, 
?36,  237,  252-356;  his  confidence 
in  Labouchere,  250;  Lord  Car- 
narvon treats  with,  252;  his  mo- 
tives discussed  by  Healy,  254,  266, 
271,  274, 276,  285,  290,  362;  Davitt 
on,  257-58;  Chamberlain  on,  266- 
67,  317;  Labouchere  on,  273,  280, 
312,  3i4-!7,  332.  337;  his  letters  to 
Labouchere  re  Home  Rule,  275-76; 
on  Gladstone,  278;  introduces  the 
Land  Bill,  357;  publication  of  his 
supposed  letters  in  the  Times,  359- 
6°,  361,  371;  his  amendment  to  the 
Speech  from  the  Throne,  369; 
denies  the  authorship  of  his 
supposed  letters,  372-73,  397;  his 
defence  by  Sir  C.  Russell,  374  »., 
375.  392-98;  his  unpopularity  in 
America,  378;  his  letters  to  Labou- 
chere re  the  Pigott  forgeries,  383-84 

Parnell  Commission,  the,  history  of, 
360, 373797 

Parnell,  Miss,  president  of  the  Ladies' 
Land  League,  173 

Paul,  Herbert,  A  History  of  Modern 
England,  quoted,  195  n.,  209  ».;  on 
Arabi,  195-96 

Peace  Preservation  Bill,  the,  172 

Pearl,  Cora,  in  the  siege  of  Paris,  43 

Pease,  Maker,  353 

Peel,  Arthur  Wellesley,  76  n.,  270 

Pelletan,  M.,  member  of  the  Pro- 
visional Government,  127 

Pemberton,  M.P.,  Mr.,  146, 150 

Peninsular  War,  the,  5-8 

Penny  Illustrated  Paper,  interview 
with  Labouchere  in,  529  n. 

Perceval,  Mr.,  ministry  of,  6-7 

Percy,  Lord,  his  attitude  to  Brad- 
laugh,  146,  149 

Persia,  despotism  of,  469 

Peruvian  bondholders,  212 

Peter  the  Hermit,  217 

Petty  Bag,  office  of,  Clerk  of  the,  246 

Phillips,  Lionel,  director  of  the  South 
Africa  Company,  426 


Phipps,  brewer,  contests  Northamp 
ton, 144 

Picard,  Ernest,  member  of  the  Re- 
publican Government,  117 

Piccadilly  Saloon,  the,  105 

Pichegru  invades  Holland,  4 

Pigott,  Richard,  Healy  on,  309-10; 
his  sale  of  the  Irishman  to  Parnell, 
374;  his  forgery  of  the  Parnell- 
Egan  correspondence,  373-406;  his 
confession  to  Labouchere,  394,  402; 
his  flight  and  suicide,  394,  402-406 

Pisani,  Alexander,  as  head  of  the 
Diplomatic  Chancellerie,  Constan- 
tinople, 64 

Pitt,  William,  287;  his  graduated 
income-tax,  247 

Plato,  489 

Plunkett,  Mr.,  410 

Poland,  English  sympathy  with,  284; 
Ireland  compared  with,  189 

Polynesia,  industrialism  of,  486 

Ponsonby,  Sir  H.,  319^ 

Pope,  Alexander,  his  villa  at  Twicken- 
ham, 40 

Portland,  Duke  of,  ministry  of,  6 

Port  Said,  occupation  of,  201,  267 

Portugal,  destiny  of,  9 

Post  Office,  Labouchere  on  the,  478; 
nomination  of  Labouchere  for,  412 

Savings  Bank,  Labouchere 

on  the,  477 

Pretoria,  British  agent  in,  442;  cap- 
ture of,  440, 445-46, 454;  Jameson's 
imprisonment  in,  434 

Prevention  of  Crimes  in  Ireland  Bill, 
passing  of  the,  175,  185-190,  248 

Primrose  League,  the,  its  misstate- 
ments  re  Pigott,  404 

Privy  Council,  the,  Labouchere  be- 
comes a  member  of,  523,  526,  530, 

53i 

Procedure  Resolutions,  the,  187 
Promissory  Oaths  Act,  the,  155 
Protection,  Labouchere  on,  531,  533; 

Parnell's  attitude  to,  258,  261,  276- 

77 
of  Life  and  Property  in  Ireland, 

Forster's  Bill  for,  166-74 
Prussia,  Crown  Prince  of,  advances 

on  Paris,  123,  127 
Public  Schools  Bill,  the,  Labouchere 

on,  84 
Puebla  di  los  Angelos,  Labouchere  at, 

34 
Punch,  reminiscences  of  Labouchere 

in,  526,  527 
Pursebearer,  office  of,  246 


INDEX 


559 


Pythagoras,    Labouchere    on,    515, 


Queen's  Messenger,  Labouchere's  pro- 

prietorship of  the,  denied,  no 
Queensberry,  Sybil,  Lady,  72 
Quotla  di  Amalpas,  Labouchere  at, 
36,  38,  62 

RADICAL  PARTY,  the,  Chamberlain's 
secession  regarded  as  its  fall,  228, 
250,  318,  319,  352,  354;  its  attitude 
to  the  Egyptian  policy,  196,  198- 
200,  212,  215,  217-19,  249;  its 
attitude  to  Socialism,  462-89;  its 
sympathy  with  Ireland,  72,  225, 
248,  252,  318;  its  treatment  by  the 
Irish,  252;  Labouchere  as  un- 
official leader  of,  196,  198,  525; 
Labouchere's  ideals  for,  225-48, 
259,304,318,319,525 

Radical  principles,  Labouchere's, 
their  divergence  from  Whig  prin- 
ciples, 42 

Rawson,  Henry,  part  proprietor  of 
the  Daily  News,  97 

Reade,  Charles,  as  a  dramatic  author, 

1  01-2 

Recruiting,  system  of,  in  America  for 

the  Crimean  War,  45 
Redmond,  J.  E.,  as  leader  of  the  Irish 

party,  524,  533 

Red  path,  American  Fenian,  170 
Reed,    correspondent   of    the   Leeds 

Mercury,  272 
Referee,  The,  537  n. 
Reform   Club,   the,   Labouchere  at, 

75,  89,  182,  198,  228,  318 
Registration  Laws,  the  English,  448 
Reid,  Wemyss,  393 
Reitz,    Dr.,   Secretary  of   State  for 

the  Transvaal,  444,  447,  451 
Religious  Disabilities  Removal  Bill, 

the,  1  60,  163-4 
Rent  Act,  421 
Reporter,  interview  with  Labouchere 

in,  477 
Representation   of   the   People  Bill, 

the,  Labouchere  on,  244 
Revelstoke,    Lord,    as   a   politician, 

240 

Reynolds's  newspaper,  471 
Rhodes,  Cecil,  his  complicity  in  the 

Jameson  Raid,  426-30,  452,  453; 

his  Imperialism,  435;  Labouchere  s 

personal  admiration  of,  430,  435, 

436;     Labouchere's     public     con- 

cern nation  of,  430-1 


Rhodesia,  435 

Riaz  Pasha,  administration  of,  195, 
221 

Ripon,  Lord,  his  government  in 
India,  210 

Roberts,  Earl,  at  Eton,  18;  his  com- 
mand in  South  Africa,  441, 445 

Robertson,  manager  of  theJRoyal 
Aquarium,  his  libel  action  against 
Labouchere,  1501 

Robertson,  M.P.,  J.  M.,  his  account 
of  Bradlaugh's  parliamentary  strug- 
gle, 142  n. 

Robinson,  Lionel,  on  Labouchere's 
financial  interest  in  the  Daily  News, 
96 

Robinson,  Sir  John,  Fifty  Years  of 
Fleet  Street,  quoted,  133  n.;  mana- 
ger of  the  Daily  News,  96,  120, 
128  n. ;  on  the  syndicate  of  the  Daily 
News,  95 

Rochdale,  484;  Chamberlain  at,  322 

Rochefort,  Henri,  release  and  triumph 
of,  127,  130 

Roell,  Dutch  statesman,  6 

Roman  Catholicism  in  Ireland,  La- 
bouchere on,  86 

Roman  Catholics  delighted  by  Glad- 
stone's article  against  Darwin,  267; 
support  Bradlaugh,  156 

Rome,   535;   Fouche\   Governor  of, 

II,  12 

Ronan,  counsel  for  the  Times,  374  n. 

Rosebery,  Earl  of,  as  Foreign  Secre- 
tary, 420,  423;  Chamberlain  on 
his  Home  Rule  policy,  298;  his 
letters  to  Labouchere  re  Home 
Rule,  268,  277,  283,  287,  307;  his 
Premiership,  423,  424;  Labou- 
chere on,  224 

Rosmead,  Lord,  his  work  as  Com- 
missioner in  South  Africa,  428, 
429 

Rossa,  O'Donovan,  284,  310 

Rothschild,  Baron,  as  a  politician, 
240;  his  Egyptian  loans,  190,  191, 
I93>  *94>  2°6;  procures  Labou- 
chere a  pass,  140 

Rouen,  Labouchere  at,  120 

Rouher,  M.,  on  the  French  army,  123 

Rousby,  Mrs.  Wybert,  appears  at 
the  New  Queen's  Theatre,  99,  102 

Rousseau,  J.-J.,  on  his  own  education, 
21 

Rovigo,  Due  de,  Napoleon's  aide-de- 
camp, n 

Royal  Aquarium,  Westminster,  Rob- 
inson manager  of,  501 


INDEX 


Royal  Parks  and  Pleasure  Grounds, 
Labouchere  on  the  upkeep  of,  84, 
409 

Rudini,  Marchesa  di,  daughter  of 
Labouchere,  535,  539~4O 

Rumbold,  Sir  Horace,  meets  Labou- 
chere at  Constantinople,  63 

Ruppenheim,  Schloss  of,  Labouchere 
at,  54 

Russell,  Charles  (Lord  Russell  of 
Killowen),  his  defence  of  Labou- 
chere, 501 ;  his  defence  of  Parnell, 
374  »•,  375,  378,  384,  389-98,  402; 
on  the  Coercion  Bill,  182 

Russell,  Lord  John,  Foreign  Secre- 
tary, appoints  Labouchere  to 
Buenos  Ayres,  65;  checks  Labou- 
chere's  information  from  St.  Peters- 
burg, 59 

Russell,  Odo,  in  Paris  during  the 
siege,  1 20 

Russians,  the,  Labouchere's  opinion 
of,  56,  57;  their  method  of  play- 
ing cards,  58 

Ryder,  Mr.,  in  The  Last  Days  of 
Pompeii,  100-1 


SAARBRUCK,  French  Army  Corps  at, 
124 

St.  Anthony's  Falls,  41 

St.  Augustine,  Confessions  of,  21 

St.  Cloud,  Napoleon  at,  10 

St.  James's  Club,  Labouchere's  mem- 
bership of,  70 

St.  James's  Hall,  Home  Rule  meeting 
at,  324,  327 

St.  Martin's  Hall,  98 

St.  Patrick,  Order  of,  241 

St.  Paul,  Labouchere  at,  40 

St.  Petersburg,  Crampton  Ambas- 
sador at,  46  ».;  Labouchere  as 
attache"  in,  52,  55-60 

St.  Thomas,  Labouchere  at,  32 

Sala,  George  Augustus,  at  Evans',  29; 
his  reminiscences  of  Labouchere, 
99,  116;  witnesses  Pigott's  con- 
fession, 394,  398-401 

Sale  of  Liquor  on  Sundays  Bill,  the, 

83 

Salisbury,  Marquis  of,  attends  the 
Berlin  Congress,  191,  192;  his 
Egyptian  policy  as  Foreign  Secre- 
tary, 191-4,  221,  223;  Irish  policy 
of  his  first  administration,  251, 
257,  270,  271,  274,  286  n.,  288,  305; 
Churchill's  letter  to,  re  Home  Rule, 
279-80,  298;  his  defeat  and  resig- 


nation, 317  n.;  as  leader  of  the 
Opposition,  319,  344,  347;  his 
second  administration,  357,  406, 
409,  411;  his  third  administration, 
438;  on  the  Transvaal,  441,  450, 

451 
Sampson,  city  editor  of  the  Times, 

Labouchere's  attacks  on,  107 
San  Francisco,  Healy  in,  310 
Sardinia,  kingdom  of,  61 
Sardou,  La  Patrie,  103 
Saturday  Review  on  Labouchere,  513 
Saunders,  Labouchere  on,  352 
Sazary,  Napoleon's  aide-de-camp,  n 
Schalk,  Burger,  President,  456 
Scholl,  Aur^lien,  120 
Schreiner,  Mr.,  449 
Schwarzenberg,    Prince,   Premier  of 

Austria,       Palmerston's      grudge 

against,  67 
Scudamore,  F.  I.,  on  the  staff  of  the 

World,  107 

Sculthorpe  Rectory,  Fakenham,  21  «. 
Seagrove,  Captain,  at  Michelstown, 

o  368,  369,  372  . 

Secret  Societies  in  Ireland,  171,  177 

Sedan,  battle  of,  125,  127 

Selby,  Lord,  his  letter  to  Labouchere 

re  retirement,  524 
Sexton,  his  imprisonment,  172,  174; 

his  services  in  the  Irish  party,  260, 

261,   315,   363;   on   the   Coercion 

Bill,  178,  187 
Sezzed  Jamal  ed  Din,  216 
Shakespearian    revivals     announced 

by  Labouchere,  104 
Shannon,  solicitor,  Pigott's  letter  to, 

395,401 

Shaw,  George  Bernard,  496 
Sheffield,  attach**  in  Pans,  120 
Sheffield    Telegraph    on    Bradlaugh, 

145 

Shekan,  battle  of,  210,  212 
Sheppard,  Jack,  relics  of,  in  Newgate, 

115 

Sherif  Pasha,  administration  of,  209 

Shipman,  Dr.,  M.P.  for  Northamp- 
ton, 519 

Sicily,  kingdom  of,  8,  9 

Simla,  Lord  Lytton  at,  192  n. 

Simon,  Jules,  member  of  the  Pro- 
visional Government,  127 

Simon,  M.P.,  Serjeant,  146,  150;  de- 
fends Forster's  Irish  Bill,  169 

Simpson,  Palgrave,  part  author  of 
Time  and  the  Hour,  98  n. 

Sixty  Years  in  the  Wilderness,  by 
Sir  H.  Lucy,  quoted,  250  n. 


INDEX 


561 


Smith,  Barnard,  his  complaint  against 

Labouchere  for  cribbing,  23-26 
Smith,  J.  G.f  at  Northampton,  489 
Smith,   Librarian   in   the   House  of 

Commons,  301 
Smith,  Sir  Archibald  Levin,  member 

of  the  Parnell  Commission,  373 
Smith,  W.  H.,  on  the  Coercion  Bill, 

187 
Soames,  Mr.,  solicitor,  concerned  in 

the  Parnell  forgery  case,  360,  385, 

389,395,  40i,405,, 

Social  Democratic  Federation,  pro- 
gramme of  the,  474-76 

Socialism,  Labouchere 's  attitude  to, 
418,  458-89 

Socrates,  Labouchere  on,  516 

Soissons,  123  n. 

Soudan,  the,  Gordon  as  Governor- 
General  of,  209 
—  War,  the,  209-18, 434 

South  Africa,  Labouchere's  sym- 
pathy with,  259 

South  African  Republic.  See  Trans- 
vaal. 

South  America,  Labouchere's  visit 
to,  31-8 

Southampton,  441 

Southwark,  representation  of,  93 

Spain,  kingdom  of,  8,  199 

Spencer,  Lord,  as  Viceroy  of  Ireland, 
174,  178,  181,  184,  186,  267,  317, 
320 

Spender,  James,  Montagu  White  on, 
447,  448 

Spezia,  Labouchere  at,  109 

Spion  Kop,  441 

Slael,  Madame  de,  questions  Na- 
poleon on  his  ideal  woman,  246 

Stamforth,  John,  contests  Athlone,  525 

Standard,  The,  on  Home  Rule,  256; 
O'Shea  correspondent  in  Paris  for, 
141  n. ;  publishes  Gladstone's  Home 
Rule  scheme,  277  «.,  286  ». 

Stanley,  Hon.  Frederick,  76  n. 

Stansfield,  338 

Stead,  William,  his  letter  in  the  Pall 
Mall  Gazette,  41 1 

Stewart,  Colonel,  his  information  re 
Hicks  Pasha,  2 10 

Stewart,  Patrick,  170 

Stockholm,  Labouchere's  duel  while 
attach<5  in,  50,  51,  72 

Steinberg,  440 

Strassburg,  French  army  at,  122  n. 

Stratford  de  Redcliffe,  Lord,  as  Am- 
bassador at  Constantinople,  62, 
63,68 


Stratford-on-Avon,   Mr.   Flower  of, 

75 

Stroud,  Labouchere  at,  332 

Stuart,    Professor   James,    speaks 
against  the  Coercion  Bill,  363 

Suakim,  political  importance  of,  214- 
18 

Suez  Canal,  the,  political  importance 
of,  199,  201,  204,  206 

Suffrage,  Adult  Manhood,  Labou- 
chere on,  229-48 

Woman,  Labouchere's  oppo- 
sition to,  244-46 

Sugden,  Charles  James,  Labouchere's 
letter  to,  re  prefaces,  537 

Swansea,  Chamberlain  at,  189 

Sweating  Committee,  the,  471 
—  in  Government  offices,  478-79 

Sweden,  Queen  of,  53 

Swift,  Dean,  on  cattle-maiming,  169 

Sydney,  N.S.W.,  393 

TALANA,  battle  of,  440 

Talavera,  battle  of,  7 

Talleyrand,  Prince,  presents  Labou- 
chere with  a  box  of  dominoes,  14 

Tariff  Reform,  Labouchere  on,  532 

Taunton,  Henry  Labouchere  the 
elder  M.P.  for,  13,  14-15;  Sir 
Henry  James  M.P.  for,  525 

Taunton,  Henry,  Baron,  differen- 
tiates between  himself  and  his 
brother,  16;  is  invited  to  assist  his 
nephew  at  Windsor,  82;  La- 
bouchere declines  to  inherit  his 
title,  251 ;  political  career  of,  13-15, 

67 

Taxation  on  food  and  drink,  Labou- 
chere on,  236 

Taylor,  Tom,  Joan. of  Arc,  102;  Tvrixt 
Axe  and  Crown,  99 

Telbin  and  Moore,  Messrs.,  98 

Tel-el-Kebir,  battle  of,  70,  198,  218 

Temple  Bar,  "Over  Babylon  to  Baal- 
bek," 113 

Temps,  Le,  on  Lord  Rosebery,  420 

Terry,  Ellen,  at  Twickenham,  356; 
in  the  Double  Marriage,  99 

Tewfik,  Khedive,  his  rule  in  Egypt, 
194,  211 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  497;  at  Evans', 
29 

Theatre-goers,  Labouchere  on,  101, 
102 

Therapia,  British  Embassy  in,  83 

Theresc  Raquin,  338 

Thesiger,  Q.  C.,  acts  as  counsel  for 
Abbot  v.  Labouchere,  1 08,  109 


562 


INDEX 


Thiers,  Histoire  du  Consulat  et  de 
I' Empire,  10  n. 

Thistle,  Order  of  the,  241 

Thornton,  banker,  16 

Thornton,    Edward,    Labouchere's 
letters  to,  518,  530-31 

Thornton,  Godfrey,  14  n. 

Thornton,  Rev.  Spenser,  14  n. 

Tichborne  case,  the,  Labouchere's 
reminiscences  of ,  1 16 

Time  and  the  Hour,  production  of, 
98-99 

Times,  The,  Arabi's  letter  to,  222; 
Bell  manager  of,  436;  denuncia- 
tions of  its  city  edition  by  Labou- 
chere,  108;  its  case  against  O'Don- 
nell,  371-74,  392;  its  case  against 
Parnell,  377-94;  its  correspond- 
ents in  Paris  during  the  siege,  141 
n.;  Labouchere  denies  proprietor- 
ship of  Queen's  Messenger  in,  no; 
Labouchere's  letters  in,  re  his  ex- 
clusion from  the  Cabinet,  415;  La- 
bouchere's letters  to,  re  Home  Rule, 
291-98, 304, 309, 356;  Labouchere's 
letters  to,  re  the  Income  Tax,  246 ; 
on  Home  Rule,  256,  293;  on  La- 
bouchere's letters  from  Paris,  119; 
on  the  Middlesex  election  of  1868, 
87-89,  92;  on  "Parnellism  and 
Crime,"  358-60,  364-65,  367,  371; 
on  the  Windsor  election  petition, 
78-80;  publishes  Gladstone's  Home 
Rule  scheme,  277  n.;  publishes 
supposed  letters  from  Parnell, 
359,  371-75,  405:  quoted,  438; 
report  of  Soudanese  War  in,  219 

Times'  History  of  the  War  in  South 
Africa,  The,  quoted,  429  n.,  437  n., 
456  n. 

Tipperary,  135 

Tokar,  conquest  of,  213 

Tonsley,  Mr.,  415 

Toole,  J.  L.,  plays  at  New  Queen's 
Theatre,  99 

Tory  democrats,  Labouchere  on,  248 

Toulba  Pasha,  exile  of,  221 

Tours,   Crawford  correspondent  at, 

I2O,   121 

Trades    Unionism,    Labouchere   on, 

4?i 

Trainbearer,  office  of,  246 

Transvaal,  English  population  of, 
426,  428,  436,  437;  its  invasion  by 
Dr.  Jameson,  426-37 

Trevelyan,  Sir  George,  150,  407; 
Healy  on,  267,  303;  on  the  Coer- 
cion Bill,  1 80,  1 88 


Triple  Alliance,  the,  Labouchere's 
opinions  on,  410,  418 

Trochu,  General,  Commander-in- 
chief  in  Paris,  125,  129;  Labou- 
chere's estimate  of,  136,  137 

Truth,  Grenville  Murray's  "Queer 
Stories,"  109;  Horace  Voules  as 
manager  and  editor  of,  493-512; 
Labouchere's  editorship  of,  14,  106, 
109,  no,  117,  493-511;  Labou- 
chere's reminiscences  of  youth  in, 
17  n.,  20  «.,  30-46,  53  n.,  91 ;  libel 
actionsagainst,472,499-5O2 ;  on  the 
Boer  War,  445  n.,  446,  455,  457;  on 
Bradlaugh,  161;  on  Chamberlain, 
228;  on  the  Chartered  Company  of 
B.S.A.,  431-34;  on  the  Egyptian 
policy,  200,  202,  204-5;  on  his  ex- 
clusion from  the  Cabinet,  415;  on 
hoaxes,  405-8;  on  Home  Rule,  287, 
315;  on  the  House  of  Commons, 
529-30;  on  India,  200;  on  the 
Irish  question,  187-89;  on  Lord 
Dudley,  525;  on  the  Michelstown 
murders,  369,  370;  on  the  Pigott 
forgeries,  375,  404,  405;  on  owning 
a  dog;  parody  of  Lest  We  Forget, 
in,  448;  Queen  Victoria's  dislike 
to  Labouchere's  proprietorship  of, 
414;  "The  Ghastly  Gaymarket," 
105  n. 

Tryon,  Sir  George,  at  Eton,  18 

Tunis,  French  occupation  of,  192 

Turin,  Nationalist  sympathies  in,  61 

Turkey,  its  intervention  in  Egypt, 
194-202;  its  relations  with  Eng- 
land, 196-97,  199;  leases  Cyprus  to 
England,  191,  192 

Turner,  Colonel,  in  Ireland,  Healy 
on,  361 

Tuscany,  deposition  of  the  Grand 
Duke  of,  61,  62 

Twickenham,  Labouchere  at,  40, 323- 

28,  333,  354,  356,  408 
Twixt  Axe  and  Crown,  produced  at 
New  Queen's  Theatre,  99 

UGANDA,  English  policy  in,  Labou- 
chere on,  421 
Uitlanders,  grievances  of  the,  426, 

427.  437,  442,  451 
Ulster,  opposition  to  Home  Rule  in, 

280,  284,  291,  299,  345 
United  Ireland,  ^55  n.,  257,  309 
United  States  of  America,  salary  of 

the  President,  42 
Usedom,  Countess  d',  caricature  of, 

70 


INDEX 


563 


VALENCAY,  Kolli  at,  10 

Vandort,    Dr.,    physician    to   Arabi 

Pasha,  220 
Vanity  Fair,  492 
Vansittart,   Mr.,  contests  Windsor, 

.76,77, 

Venezuela,  434 

Venice,  Labouchere  at,  1 1 1 

Vera  Cruz,  Labouchere  at,  32-35, 38 

Verdun,  Bazaine  at,  124 

Versailles,  Labouchere  at,  139,  140; 
Prussian  army  at,  127,  128,  139, 
140 

Victor  Emmanuel  II.,  Labouchere's 
reminiscences  of,  62 

Victoria,  Queen,  85;  Gladstone  sub- 
mits scheme  for  Home  Rule  to, 
270,  277,  286  ».,  288;  her  Civil  List, 
234;  her  objection  to  Labou- 
chere's inclusion  in  the  Ministry, 
67,  413-15;  King  Louis  of  Bavaria 
inquires  for,  40 

Vienna,  Grenville  Murray  attach^ 
in,  68;  Labouchere  in,  529;  public 
parks  of,  84 

Villa  d'Este,  Labouchere  at,  535,  536 

Vinpy,  General,  in  Paris,  128  n.,  136 

Vivian,  Lord,  as  Consul-General  in 

Egypt,  194 

Voism  s,  Pans,  139 

Voltaire,     Labouchere's     neutrality 

compared  with,  220,  513 
Voltaire  on  Labouchere,  412 
Voters'  Bill,  a,  Healy  oc,  273 
Voules,    Horace,    his    editorship    of 

Truth,  493-512 
Vulpera     Tarasp,     Labouchere     at, 

450,454 
Vyse,  Colonel,  contests  Windsor,  76 


WADDINGTON,  M.,  at  the  Berlin  Con- 
gress, 102  n. 

Wady  Haifa,  217 

Wagner,  F.S.A.,  Henry,  his  "Labou- 
cnere  Pedigree, "  14  n. 

"Wait  and  See"  policy,  the,  Cham- 
berlain on,  300 

Walcheren,  expedition  to,  6 

Walker,  John  F.,  106-7 

Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  declines  a  de- 
coration, 241 

Walpole,  M.P.,  Spencer,  chairman  of 
Select  Committee  on  Bradlaugh 
case,  146,  150 

Walsh,  Archbishop  of  Dublin, 
Churchill  on,  282;  his  relations 
with  Pigott,  381,  392,  404 


Walter,  case  of  O'Donnell  r.,  372, 

373-74 

War  Loan  Bill,  the,  441 
Warr,   Lord   de  la,   his  interest  in 

Arabi,  221,  223 

Warrington,  Chamberlain  at,  257, 258 
Wars  of  Religion,  the,  i 
Warton,  M.P.,  Mr.,  on  Bradlaugh, 

»49,  163 

Washburne,  Elihu,  American  Am- 
bassador in  Paris  during  the  siege, 

43 

Washington,  Labouchere  as  attach^ 
at,  39, 45-46,  72 ;  Labouchere's  am- 
bition to  become  Ambassador  at, 

7L423 

Waterhouse,  Major,  76  n. 

Waterloo,  battle  of,  42,  57 

Webster,  Sir  Richard,  Attorney- 
General,  on  Parnell's  supposed 
letters,  372~73,  386,  395,  397,  4<*; 
his  examination  of  Pigott,  386-89 

Weissenburg,  battle  of,  123 

Welby,  Lord,  on  Labouchere  at  Eton, 
18 

Wellesley,  Lord,  English  Foreign 
Secretary,  P.-C.  Labouchere's  mis- 
sion to,  5-10 

Wellington,  Arthur,  first  Duke  of, 
in  the  Peninsula,  7;  on  the  battle 
of  Waterloo,  42,  57 

West,  Sir  Algernon,  at  Eton,  18 

Westminster,  Duke  of,  on  the  Irish 
party,  315 

Hall,  Women's  Suffrage  Petition 

in,  246 

Westmoreland,  Earl  of,  as  Ambassa- 
dor in  Vienna,  68 

Whalem,  Bridget  and  Patrick,  168-69 

Wharton,  Mr.,  427 

Whewell,  Master  of  Trinity,  en- 
counters Labouchere,  27-28 

Whig  party,  the,  Labouchere  on,  229, 
248,  305 

Whig  principles,  their  divergence 
from  Radical  principles,  42 

Whist  as  a  diplomatist's  game,  49, 

Whitbread,  M.P.,  Mr.,  146,  150 
White,  Mr.,  on  the  Triple  Allian 

411 

White,  Montagu,  Labouchere's  corre- 
spondence with,  446-49,  451, 455 
Wicklow,  Parnell  at,  258 
Wiesbaden,  Labouchere  at,  30,  54 
Wigan,  Alfred,  comedian,  part  man- 
ager of  the  New  Queen 's  Theatre, 
98 


oe, 


564 


INDEX 


Wilkes,  John,  his  struggle  for  politi- 
cal liberty,  163,  164 

Williams,  M.P.,  Watkin,  146,  150 

Williams,  Deacon,  Thornton  and 
Labouchere,  bank  of,  16 

Willoughby,  Captain,  his  part  in  the 
Jameson  Raid,  426 

Wilson,  Sir  Rivers,  as  English  Com- 
missioner and  Finance  Minister  in 

Egypt,  193,  *94, 206 

Wilton  Park,  Bucks,  16 
Winchilsea,  Lord,  on  the  staff  of  the 

World,  107 

Winchester,  Thorold,    Bishop  of,  2  n. 
Windsor,  Labouchere  elected  for,  and 

unseated,  70,  74-83,  95,  493 
Wingfield,  Lewis,  in  Paris  during  the 

siege,  138  n. 
Winterbotham,  chairman  at  Stroud, 

332 
Wodehouse,  English  Ambassador  in 

Paris  during  the  siege,  43 
Woking,  Dilke  at,  327 
Wolff,    Sir   Henry    Drummond,   his 

motion    against    Bradlaugh,    146, 

147,  150,  163 

Wolseley,  Garnet,  Viscount,  his  mis- 
sion in  Egypt,  197,  208 


Wolverhampton,  Lord.  See  Fowler, 
SirH. 

Wolverton,  Lord,  on  Chamberlain 
and  the  Irish  party,  337 

Women,  votes  for,  Labouchere 's  op- 
position to,  244-47,  517 

Wood,  Sir  Evelyn,  his  command  in 
Egypt,  209 

Woollaston,  examiner  at  Cambridge, 

24 

Woolwich,  Chamberlain  at,  323 
World,  The,  Labouchere 's  connection 

with,  94,  106-11,  492,  495,  527 
W6rth,  battle  of,  124,  127 
Wyndham,  Charles,  at  New  Queen's 

Theatre,  99 
Wyndham,  George,  member  of  the 

South  Africa  Commission,  427, 435, 

436 

YARMOUTH,  6 

Yates,  Edmund,  at  Evans',  29; 
editor  of  the  World,  492,  502;  on 
Labouchere  as  a  contributor,  106- 
ii 

ZANZIBARIS,  troop  of,  in  Uganda,  421 


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Memoirs  of  a  Prima 
Donna 

By  Clara  Louise  Kellogg 

Mme.  Strakosch) 

£°.  With  48  Illustrations.    $2.5O  net 
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Clara  Louise  Kellogg,  who  is  now  Clara  Louise  Stra- 
kosch,  was  the  first  American  prima  donna  to  win  re- 
cognition abroad.  After  making  her  de*but  in  opera  at 
the  Academy  of  Music,  in  New  York,  in  1 86 1 ,  she  appeared 
in  opera  in  London  and  later  in  Berlin,  Vienna,  and  Saint 
Petersburg.  In  every  country  she  was  received  with 
acclaim  and  returned  to  her  native  land  covered  with 
honors  showered  upon  her  by  the  best  audiences  that 
the  old  world  affords. 

Miss  Kellogg  created  the  r61e  of  Marguerite  in  Gounod's 
Faust  in  this  country,  and  of  Mignon  in  Ambroise 
Thomas's  opera  of  that  name.  After  winning  laurels 
in  Italian  opera  she  organized  an  English  opera  company 
of  her  own,  which  sang  for  several  seasons  in  New  York 
and  the  principal  cities  of  the  United  States.  While  at 
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the  rdle  of  Senta,  and  she  was  the  first  prima  donna  to 
sing  A'ida  and  Carmen  in  English.  Miss  Kellogg  was 
famous  not  only  for  the  beautiful  quality  of  her  voice  but 
for  her  marvelous  musical  ear.  It  is  said  that  there  were 
over  forty  operas  that  she  could  sing  on  twenty-four 
hours'  notice,  and  that  never  once  in  the  course  of  her 
operatic  career  had  she  been  known  to  sing  a  fraction  of 
a  tone  off  the  key. 

These  Memoirs  are  filled  with  anecdotes  of  the  interest- 
ing people  whom  she  met,  on  and  off  the  stage,  and  con- 
tain a  fund  of  information  about  voice  culture  and  the 
study  of  music  that  no  one  interested  in  the  subject  can 
read  without  profit. 

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The  Public  Prosecutor 
of  the  Terror 

Fouquier-Tinville 

By  Alphonse  Dunoyer 

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France 

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Fouquier-Tinville  was  one  of  the  most  potent  and 
sinister  personalities  under  the  Reign  of  Terror.  His 
activities,  influence,  and  downfall  are  all  part  of  an 
intensely  dramatic  career. 

He  was  the  Public  Prosecutor  under  the  Terror.  He 
denounced  and  brought  to  the  scaffold  no  fewer  than 
2400  victims,  ranging  from  Marie  Antoinette  to  Robes- 
pierre and  St.  Just.  He  was  "falsely  true"  to  his  office 
and  like  many  another  bloody  rascal  fulfilled  his  villainies 
in  the  idea  that  by  so  doing  he  was  realizing  his  duty. 
He  was  genuinely  surprised  when  he  himself  was  de- 
nounced, arraigned,  and  condemned — he  was  furious 
when  the  judgment  of  death  was  passed  upon  him — and 
he  believed  himself  to  be  a  victim  of  duty  and  a  sacrifice 
for  his  country.  It  is  a  curious  psychological  spectacle 
very  admirably  exhibited. 

So,  too,  with  that  other  side  of  the  picture  that  is 
shown,  the  ghastly  results  of  this  tyranny  of  the  people, 
the  mean  system  of  spying — by  means  of  montreurs  who 
inveigled  prisoners  into  confessions  which  brought  them- 
selves and  their  friends  to  the  guillotine;  the  haphazard, 
indifferent  ways  in  which  men  and  women  were  brought 
to  death,  many  an  innocent  man  being  trapped  because 
he  had  the  same  name  as  another;  the  heartless  way  in 
which  women  enceintes  were  hurried  to  the  scaffold  before 
or  after  they  had  passed  their  pains.  A  real  contribution 
to  the  history  of  this  period,  based  on  original  and 
unpublished  documents. 

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— especially  their  hatred  and  fear  of  Palmerston — their 
love  for  Louis-Philippe,  for  the  German  Confederation, 
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culled  from  the  diaries  and  letters  of  contemporaries 
and  scathing  extracts  affecting  not  only  Victoria's  Court, 
but  the  royal  family  and  even  the  Queen  herself,  have 
been  taken  from  the  press  of  the  time.  The  narrative, 
while  abounding  in  episode,  is  organic  in  development 
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"Jin  invaluable  addition  to  the  literary 
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The  Diaries  of 

William  Charles  Macready 

1833-1851 

Edited  by  William  Charles  Toynbee 

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publication.  In  a  style  full  of  candor,  though  at  times 
sharply  caustic  after  the  manner  of  his  day,  the  author 
speaks  of  the  stage  rivals  and  illustrious  contemporaries 
with  whom  he  came  into  clash.  But  if  he  does  not  spare 
others,  he  is  critical  of  himself,  too.  When  he  turns  the 
search-light  on  his  own  character,  he  does  so  with  firmness 
of  purpose.  His  enthusiasms  as  well  as  his  prejudices 
reveal  the  make-up  of  the  man,  with  atoning  features 
of  heart  and  mind  to  offset  the  occasional  outbursts  of 
rancor  in  which  he  indulges  and  the  perversities  of 
judgment  of  which  he  is  guilty. 

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